University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


! 


j,m 


POEMS 
BY  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Hitherto  Unpublished 


POEMS 

BY 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

(HITHERTO  UNPUBLISHED) 


WITH 
INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES  BY 

GEORGE  S.  HELLMAN 

AND 

WILLIAM  P.  TRENT 


PRIVATELY  PRINTED  FOR 

MR.  FRANCIS  S.  PEABODY 
CHICAGO    MCMXXI 


Copyright  1921  by 

The  Bibliophile  Society 

All  rights  reserved 


The  Bibliophile  Society  desires  to  acknowledge  its  obligations 
to  Mr.  Francis  S.  Peabody  for  his  generosity  in  permitting  it 
to  print  the  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  manuscripts  for  its 
members,  and  as  a  token  of  gratitude  and  appreciation,  has 
issued  this  small  complimentary  edition  from  the  same  type 
forms  from  which  the  bibliophile  edition  was  printed 


Life's  winds  and  billows,  hoarse  and  shrill, 
Could  ne'er  his  minstrel-ardor  still; 
He  sailed  and  piped  until  his  breath 
Went  out  within  the  grip  of  death ; 
And  now,  upon  his  island  home, 
Fringed  with  the  far  Pacific  foam, 
He  lies  at  peace,  beloved,  renowned 
The  sympathetic  world  around. 

W.  P.  T. 


M666S47 


INDEX  OF  TITLES  AND  FIRST 
LINES  IN  THIS  VOLUME 


A  Summer  Night 

All  influences  were  in  vain 

All  night  through,  raves  or  broods 

At  morning  on  the  garden  seat  . 

Aye,  mon,  it's  true  . 

Eh,  man  Henley,  you're  a  Don 

Far  over  seas  an  island  is 

Gather  ye  roses  while  ye  may     . 

Good  old  ale,  mild  or  pale 

Her  name  is  as  a  word  of  old  romance 

Here  he  comes,  big  with  statistics 

Here  lies  Erotion 

Hopes 

I  am  a  hunchback,  yellow-faced 

I  am  like  one  that  has  sat  alone 

I  have  a  friend ;  I  have  a  story  . 

I  look  across  the  ocean 

I  saw  red  evening  through  the  rain 

I  sit  up  here  at  midnight  . 

If  I  could  arise  and  travel  away 

If  I  had  wings,  my  lady  . 

['»■] 


39 
43 
1 02 
109 
130 
100 
132 
86 

113 
82 

75 
126 

69 

139 

57 

65 

141 

92 

58 

in 

98 


In  autumn  when  the  woods  are  red  . 

Last  night  we  had  a  thunderstorm,  etc 

Light  as  my  heart  was  long  ago 

Link  your  arm  in  mine,  my  lad  . 

Love  is  the  very  heart  of  spring 

My  wife  and  I,  in  one  romantic  cot 

Nay,  but  I  fancy  somehow,  etc.  . 

Of  schooners,  islands  and  maroons 

O  lady  fair  and  sweet 

On  the  gorgeous  hills  of  morning 

Poem  for  a  Class  Re-union 

Rivers  and  winds  among  the  twisted  hills 

Since  I  am  sworn  to  live  my  life 

Sit  doon  by  me,  my  canty  freend 

Take  not  my  hand  as  mine  alone 

The  look  of  Death  is  both  severe  and  mild 

The  Mill-House 

The  moon  is  sinking,  etc.  . 

The  old  world  moans  and  topes 

The  rain  is  over  and  done 

The  Well-Head 

The  whole  day  thro',  etc.   . 

There  where  the  land  of  love 

To  Priapus 

To  A  Youth     . 

We  are  as  maidens,  one  and  all 

Yes,  I  remember,  etc. 


78 

94 

84 

61 

107 

117 

114 

122 

96 

134 

89 

137 

87 

76 

4i 
80 

29 
50 

54 
104 

35 

52 

105 

128 

72 

47 
119 


[12] 


THE  STEVENSON  MANUSCRIPTS 

At  the  time  when  the  great  mass  of  manu- 
scripts, books,  and  other  personal  belongings 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  were  dispersed 
through  a  New  York  auction  room  in  Novem- 
ber 1914,  and  January  1915,  the  whole  of 
civilization  was  being  shaken  to  its  very  foun- 
dations, and  the  exigencies  of  the  times  were 
such  that  people  were  concerned  with  more 
important  matters  than  the  acquisition  of 
manuscripts  and  relics.  Therefore  the  sale, 
which  in  ordinary  times  would  have  attracted 
widespread  attention  among  editors,  critics, 
publishers  and  collectors,  went  comparatively 
unnoticed  amid  the  general  clamor  and  ap- 
prehension of  the  time.  There  was,  however, 
one  vigilant  Stevenson  collector,  in  the  person 
of  Mr.  Francis  S.  Peabody,  who  bought  a 
large  part  of  the  unpublished  manuscripts  at 
the    sale,    and   has   since   acquired   most  of 

[13] 


the  remainder  which  went  chiefly  to  various 
dealers.  Mr.  Peabody  has  generously  offered 
to  share  the  enjoyment  of  his  Stevenson  treas- 
ures with  his  fellow  bibliophiles,  and  we  are 
indebted  to  him  for  the  privilege  of  issuing 
the  first  printed  edition  of  many  precious 
items,  without  which  no  collection  of  Steven- 
soniana  can  ever  be  regarded  as  being  com- 
plete. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  last  years 
of  Stevenson's  life  were  spent  at  Samoa, 
which  became  the  only  permanent  home  of 
his  married  life,  where  he  kept  his  great  col- 
lection of  manuscripts  and  note  books,  the 
accumulation  of  his  twenty-odd  years  of 
work;  and  where,  being  far  removed  from  the 
centers  of  civilization,  he  came  very  little  in 
contact  with  editors  or  publishers  who,  dur- 
ing his  lifetime  or  subsequently,  would  have 
been  interested  in  ransacking  his  chests  for 
new  material.  When  his  personal  effects  were 
finally  packed  up  and  shipped  to  the  United 
States  they  were  sent  to  the  auction  room 
and  disposed  of  for  ready  cash,  and  thereafter 
it  became  impossible  for  publishers  to  acquire 
either  the  possession  or  the  publication  rights 

[14] 


of  the  manuscripts  without  great  expense  and 
inconvenience. 

From  events  that  have  transpired  since  the 
publication  in  1916  of  the  two-volume  Bib- 
liophile edition  of  Stevenson's  unpublished 
poems,  we  are  led  to  believe  that  the  literary 
importance  of  the  manuscripts  was  not  appre- 
ciated by  the  Stevenson  heirs.  It  is  neither 
necesssary  nor  advisable  to  comment  or  specu- 
late further  upon  the  circumstances  which  led 
to  the  sale  of  the  manuscripts  before  being 
published ;  whatever  they  may  have  been,  they 
are  of  far  less  importance  to  the  public  than 
the  established  fact  that  the  manuscripts  were 
dispersed  before  being  transcribed  "or  pub- 
lished, and  the  further  fact  that  they  ulti- 
mately came  into  the  possession  of  an  owner 
who  now  permits  them  to  be  printed. 

If  it  be  regrettable  that  the  distribution  of 
the  present  edition,  in  which  there  is  des- 
tined to  be  a  world-wide  interest,  is  confined 
to  the  relatively  limited  membership  of  a  book 
club,  the  circumstances  are  made  inevitable 
by  certain  fundamental  rules,  without  which 
no  cohesive  body  of  booklovers  can  long  exist. 
And  these  restrictive   measures  are  not  in- 

[15] 


spired  by  selfish  motives,  but  purely  as  a 
matter  of  necessity  in  preserving  the  organ- 
ization. 

Some  of  the  manuscripts  printed  in  the  four 
separate  volumes  now  issued  were  not  avail- 
able at  the  time  when  the  two-volume  edition 
was  brought  out  by  The  Bibliophile  Society 
in  1916,  and  it  was  thought  best  to  defer  their 
publication  until  such  time  as  we  could  bring 
together  the  major  part  of  the  remaining  in- 
edited  material,  which  we  believe  has  now 
been  accomplished. 

H.  H.  H. 


[16] 


INTRODUCTION 

The  present  collection  of  hitherto  unpub- 
lished poems  gathered  from  the  manuscripts 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  will  be  found  to 
contain  much  that  is  of  keen  interest  to  read- 
ers and  of  both  sentimental  and  practical 
value  to  collectors.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  this 
interest  and  value  will  prove  to  be  transitory, 
since  the  volume  now  offered,  like  its  notable 
predecessors  issued  by  The  Bibliophile  So- 
ciety in  1916,  must  afford  very  important  aid 
to  future  biographers  and  critics  of  a  writer 
who  has  taken  a  high  and  secure  place  in  the 
literature  of  the  English-speaking  peoples. 
Although  the  books  of  verse  issued  under  the 
supervision  of  Stevenson  himself  and  of  his 
representatives  may  contain  a  larger  number 
of  finished,  artistic  products  along  with  the 
few  poems  in  which  his  genius  found  perfect 
expression,  such  as  the  best  pieces  of  "The 

[17] 


Child's  Garden,"  "Requiem,"  and  "In  Mem- 
oriam  F.  A.  S.,"  the  poems  here  and  lately 
published  from  his  manuscripts  may  fairly  be 
held  to  do  more  than  the  earlier  volumes  of 
his  verse  could  ever  have  done  towards  estab- 
lishing his  reputation  as  a  poet  born,  not 
made;  as  a  writer  who  could  probably  have 
won  fame  through  poetry  had  he  not  turned 
to  prose,  as  a  child  of  song  not  unworthy  to 
be  remembered  with  those  Scotch  forerun- 
ners whom  he  so  delighted  to  honor,  Robert 
Fergusson  and  Robert  Burns. 

Like  Fergusson  and  Burns,  Stevenson  is  not 
less  interesting  as  a  man  than  he  is  as  a  poet, 
and  it  is  therefore  proper  to  consider  first  the 
biographical  importance  of  the  poems  here 
collected.  One  piece  in  particular  calls  for 
attention.  The  lines  assigned  provisionally 
to  the  year  1872,  "I  have  a  friend;  I  have  a 
story,"  if  Mr.  Hellman  be  right,  as  he  doubt- 
less is,  in  connecting  them  with  the  verses  first 
published  in  1916  entitled  "God  gave  to  me 
a  child  in  part,"  offer  hints  of  a  love  tragedy 
of  intense  passion  and  suffering  enacted  in 
Edinburgh  in  the  opening  years  of  Steven- 
son's manhood.     It  is  neither  necessary  nor 

[18] 


prudent,  where  all  is  as  yet  shadowy,  to  ven- 
ture upon  speculations  specific  in  character, 
but  it  seems  permissible  to  wonder  whether  in 
the  two  poems  just  named  we  have  not  heard 
a  rustling  premonitory  of  the  gradual  lifting 
of  the  curtain  that  has  appeared  to  screen 
phases  at  least  of  the  youthful  career  of  the 
poet  and  romancer. 

That  Stevenson  was  no  saint  in  what  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin  discreetly  calls  "his  daft  stu- 
dent days"  has  long  been  clear,  despite  the 
deft  indefiniteness  with  which  editors,  biog- 
raphers and  friends  have  treated  the  period; 
but  with  the  challenge  these  two  poems,  inter- 
preted as  they  have  been,  fling  down  to  ret- 
icence— loyal  and  commendable  though  this 
has  surely  been  thus  far — and  with  the  sup- 
porting hints  and  implications  that  may  be 
gathered  from  other  verses  of  the  same  period 
of  immaturity  and  effervescence,  one  feels  that 
the  legend-making  against  which  Henley 
raised  his  much  deprecated  but  unforgettable 
protest  must  soon  be  more  or  less  a  thing  of 
the  shamefaced  past. 

It  was  natural  for  Stevenson's  contempor- 
aries and  for  the  immediately  succeeding  gen- 

[19] 


eration  of  readers  to  give  themselves  to  the  cult 
of  a  charming  poet  for  children,  a  courageous 
mentor  and  fascinating  companion  of  youth, 
a  lay-preacher  with  a  gospel  of  cheery  opti- 
mism drawn  from  triumph  over  suffering  and 
adapted  to  all  human  beings  whatever  their 
time  and  condition  of  life.  It  was  equally 
natural  for  Stevenson's  intimate  friends,  who 
believed  that  the  side  of  his  character  which 
contemporaries  admired  was  the  best  and  tru- 
est side  of  the  man  they  knew  and  loved,  not 
to  dwell  upon  another  side  of  him,  especially 
of  his  earlier  self,  which  did  not  so  justly  and 
fully  represent  him,  and  called  for  no  em- 
phasis in  those  days  when  his  fame  was  in  the 
making.  Yet,  whatever  Henley's  lack  of  tact 
and  his  underlying  promptings,  conscious  or 
unconscious,  his  protest,  we  cannot  but  feel, 
was  one  that  had  to  be  made  sooner  or  later, 
and  now  that  those  most  likely  to  be  vitally 
affected  by  resolute  biographical  realism  have 
passed  away,  it  is  not  treasonable  to  Steven- 
son's memory  to  hope  that  the  publication  by 
The  Bibliophile  Society  of  manuscripts  which 
he  did  not  destroy  and  must  consequently,  in 
a  sense,   have   destined   to  publication,   will 

[20] 


mark  the  beginning  of  a  period  of  minute 
scholarly  investigation  into  each  stage  of  his 
life.  He  would  have  been  the  last  person  to 
object  to  this,  and  his  best  admirers  are  surely 
those  who  serenely  welcome  every  honest  at- 
tempt at  study  of  his  life  and  works  as  well 
as  all  efforts  to  recover  whatever  scrap  of  his 
multifarious  writings  may  appear  to  possess 
the  slightest  value. 

To  such  scholarly  investigation  the  present 
collection  and  the  prior  Bibliophile  volumes 
will  be  indispensable.  They  show  plainly 
that  verse-making  played  a  much  larger  part 
in  Stevenson's  training  as  a  writer — a  matter 
abundantly  discussed — than  there  had  form- 
erly been  reason  even  so  much  as  to  suspect. 
It  is  open  to  doubt  whether  Mrs.  Stevenson 
herself,  although  her  intelligence  in  all  that 
concerned  her  famous  husband  was  almost 
equal  to  her  devotion  to  him  and  to  his  mem- 
ory, ever  fully  comprehended  the  range  of 
his  poetic  interests,  or  carefully  examined  the 
mass  of  his  early  experiments  in  verse.  I  am 
at  least  certain  that  when  some  twenty-one 
years  ago  I  wrote  an  introduction  to  an  Am- 
erican edition  of  a  part  of  Stevenson's  then 

[21] 


known  poetry,  I  had  no  notion  that  what  I 
then  had  before  me  did  not  represent  even 
half  of  his  accomplished  work  in  that  cate- 
gory of  literature.  There  was  then,  for  ex- 
ample, little  ground  for  believing  that  the 
strictly  lyrical  impulse  was  strong  in  him 
from  the  beginning;  that  he  had  ever  very 
seriously  essayed  the  old  French  forms  of 
verse  in  which  his  contemporaries  like  Lang 
and  Dobson  were  so  fluent,  or  that  he  had 
shown  more  than  an  amateurish  interest  in 
the  work  of  such  a  poet  as  Martial. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  his  discussions  of 
Villon  and  of  Charles  of  Orleans  might, 
without  Mr.  Graham  Balfour's  aid,  have  led 
one  to  suspect  dabbling  in  French  forms,  and 
it  is  possibly  true  that  for  at  least  a  consid- 
erable portion  of  his  later  life  the  writing 
of  verse  was,  to  quote  the  biographer  just 
named,  "almost  always  a  resource  of  illness 
or  of  convalescence."  He  appears,  according 
to  the  same  authority,  to  have  written  "Re- 
quiem" when  recovering  from  the  drastic  ill- 
ness at  Hyeres  in  the  early  eighties,  and  in  a 
letter  to  his  mother  he  confirmed  in  a  measure 
the  view  just  cited,  when  he  declared,  "I  do 

[22] 


nothing  but  play  patience  and  write  verse,  the 
true  sign  of  my  decadence."  But  much  the 
greater  part  of  the  present  volume,  and  most 
of  the  first  of  the  two  Bibliophile  volumes  of 
1916,  must  be  assigned  to  the  decade  preced- 
ing the  breakdown  on  the  Riviera,  and  the 
verses  they  contain  suggest  "storm  and  stress" 
more  than  they  do  valetudinarianism. 

It  seems  plain  therefore  that,  although  no 
longer  than  five  years  ago  it  might  have  been 
permissible  to  regard  Stevenson  as  an  excep- 
tion to  the  rule  that  successful  writers  of  prose 
often  begin  their  careers  with  verse-writing 
which  they  later  abandon,  it  is  now  neces- 
sary— and  pleasant — to  believe  that  in  this 
respect,  as  in  not  a  few  others,  the  lines  of 
his  development  run  parallel  with  those  fol- 
lowed in  the  case  of  many  a  distinguished  pre- 
decessor. This  is  fortunate,  since  wider  and 
more  permanent  fame  is  the  portion  of  those 
who  keep  steadily  to  the  broad  highways  of 
literature  than  seems  to  come  to  those  who  to 
any  appreciable  extent  are  diverted  into  its 
by-ways.  The  more  Stevenson's  career  as  a 
man  of  letters  is  studied,  the  less,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  will   it  appear  eccentric.     As   poet, 

[23] 


essayist,  romancer,  correspondent,  and  writer 
of  travels,  he  keeps  step  with  his  great  peers, 
and  like  them  he  has  arrived  at  the  bourne 
of  permanent  and  large  renown. 

Of  more  specific  comment  upon  the  present 
new  poems  there  seems  to  be  little  need,  since 
Mr.  Hellman  has  covered  the  important 
points  in  his  introductory  notes.  Still  it  may 
be  desirable  to  call  attention  here  to  the  strong 
influence  exerted  on  the  early  and  notable 
poem,  "The  Mill  House,"  by  one  of  Steven- 
son's favorite  poets  —  now  dead  just  a  century 
—  John  Keats.  The  curious  individuality  of 
"The  Well-Head,"  the  note  of  poetic  intensity 
in  the  poem  beginning,  "I  am  like  one  that  has 
sat  alone" — due,  perhaps,  to  the  influence  of 
Heine,  who  was  one  of  Stevenson's  early 
masters  despite  a  repugnance  to  the  German 
language  sometimes  expressed  in  the  corres- 
pondence— the  singular  wealth  of  poetical 
material  dissociated  from  the  needed  techni- 
cal skill  in  handling  to  be  observed  in  "To  a 
Youth,"  the  courage  with  its  touch  of  brav- 
ado, attributable  in  part  to  frail  health,  dis- 
played in  "Since  I  am  sworn  to  live  my  life," 
— one  of  the   experiments   in  French    forms 

[24] 


which  constitute  perhaps  the  most  important 
contribution  made  by  the  present  collection, 
although  not  necessarily  the  most  attractive — 
on  all  these  points  one  might  dwell  at  some 
length  with  pleasure  and  possible  profit  were 
one  writing  a  formal  essay.  Even  in  a  brief 
foreword  it  seems  incumbent  to  forestall  the 
notes  in  emphasizing  the  daring  unconven- 
tionality  of  "Last  night  we  had  a  thunder- 
storm in  style,"  the  humor  of  "Eh,  man  Hen- 
ley, you're  a  don,"  the  curious  anticipation 
of  Kipling  in  "If  I  could  arise  and  travel 
away,"  the  poignant  note  of  "The  rain  is  over 
and  done," — not  exceptional  in  the  verses  of 
this  fermenting  epoch  of  Stevenson's  life — 
and,  last  but  not  least,  the  rather  extraordin- 
ary quality  of  certain  individual  lines.  Evi- 
dences of  immaturity  in  respect  to  details  of 
literary  training  are  everywhere  to  be  found, 
but  who,  save  a  poet  of  authentic  utterance, 
would  have  been  likely  to  achieve  such  initial 
verses  as — 

"I  saw  red  evening  through  the  rain," 
or  "Love  is  the  very  heart  of  spring," 
or  "Of  schooners,  islands,  and  maroons," 
or  "Far  over  seas  an  island  is," 

[25] 


whether  or  not  he  was  able  to  continue  the 
poetic  flight  so  auspiciously  begun? 

But  it  is  time  to  let  the  reader  judge  of 
these  matters  for  himself. 

W.  P.  T. 


[26] 


POEMS 
BY  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Hitherto  Unpublished 


THE  MILL-HOUSE— 1866 

This  impressive  poem  antedates  any  piece 
included  in  any  previous  volume  of  Steven- 
son's verse,  and  appears  to  be  the  longest  of 
his  early  attempts  at  poetry.  Written  pre- 
sumably at  Swanston,  it  is  very  successful  in 
many  of  its  descriptive  passages,  both  in  its 
sense  of  actuality,  as  where  "great  horses 
strain  against  the  load  of  the  sack-laden 
wagons,"  and  in  that  imaginative  atmosphere 
created  by  chivalrous  knights  and  phantom 
castles.  It  is  permissible  to  believe  that  the 
verses  are  merely  the  opening  portion  of  some 
long  composition  which  Stevenson  had  in 
mind;  yet  in  themselves  they  give  a  sense  of 
completeness,  because  the  poet,  after  having 
let  his  thought  wander  into  the  fields  of  ro- 
mance and  of  faery,  ends  his  manuscript  with 
a  mental  and  spiritual  return  to  those  prob- 
lems of  life,  those  "grim  questionings  of 
heart,"  which  were  just  beginning  to  absorb 
the  thoughtful  and  passionate  boy. 


[29] 


THE  MILL-HOUSE 
(a  sick-bed  fancy) 

An  alley  ran  across  the  pleasant  wood, 

On  either  side  of  whose  broad  opening  stood 

Wide-armed  green  elms  of  many  a  year,  great 

bowers 
Of  perfect  greenery  in  summer  hours. 
A  small  red  pathway  slow  meandered  there 
Between  two  clumps  of  grapes,  [both]  lush 

and  fair, 
Well  grown,  that  brushed  a  tall  man  past  the 

knee. 
No  summer  day  grew  therein  over  hot, 
For  there  was  a  pleasant  freshness  in  the  spot 
Brought  thither  by  a  stream  that  men  might 

see 
Behind  the  rough-barked  bole  of  every  tree — 
A  little  stream  that  ever  murmured  on 
And  here  and  there  in  sudden  sunshine  shone ; 
But  for   the   most  part,   swept  by  shadowy 

boughs, 
Among  tall  grass  and  fallen  leaves  did  drowse, 
With  ever  and  anon,  a  leap,  a  gleam, 
As  some  cross  boulder  lay  athwart  the  stream. 

[30] 


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w^~  H^Zul.    <3^Jv     t^fcc    £^  <tU*~^6&-*^ 


utl'Fk,  c^h^_  &^<?£_  ^-*--t/2i_  tx-    ^L^Ly  £^~  c^!L<2sl~^  f 


Close  following  down    this  alley,  one  came 

near 
The  place  where  it  descended  sudden,  sheer, 
Into  a  dell  betwixt  two  wooded  hills, 
Where  ran  a  river  made  of  many  rills. 
Near  where  to  this  the  little  alley  stream 
Lapsed  in  a  turmoil,  stood  as  in  a  dream 
A  lone,  small  mill-house  in  the  vale  aloof 
With  orange  mosses  on  a  grey  slate  roof 
And  all  the  walls  and  every  lintel  stone 
With  water  mosses  cunningly  o'ergrown. 
Its  four-paned  windows  looked  across  a  pool 
By  shadow  of  the  house  and  trees  kept  cool; 
Pent  by  the  mossy  weir  that  served  the  mill, 
Its  little  waters  lay  unmoved  and  still, 
Save  for  a  circular,  slow,  eddy-wheeling 
That  on  its  bubble-spotted  breast  kept  stealing 
And  now  and  then  the  sudden,  short  wind- 
sway 
Of  some  elm  branch  or  beachen,  that  all  day 
Trailed  in  the  shadowed  pool;  but  far  below 
The  enfranchised  waters,  in  tumultuous  flow, 
Splashed  round  the  boulders  and  leapt  on  in 

foam 
Adown  the  sunshine  way  that  led  them  home. 

[31] 


There  was  no  noise  at  all  about  the  mill 
And  the  slope  garden,  like  a  dream,  was  still. 
There  came  no  sound  at  all  into  the  glade, 
Save  when    the   white    sack-laden   waggons 

made 
Wheel-creaking  in  the  shadowy,  slanting  road 
And  the  great  horses  strained  against  the  load ; 
Or  when  some  trout  would  splash  in  the  pool 

perhaps, 
Or  my  old  pointer  from  his  pendulous  chaps 
Bayed  at  the  very  stillness.    In  the  house 
It  was  so  strangely  quiet  that  the  mouse 
Held  carnival  at  midday  on  the  floor. 
The  hearths  were  lined  with  Holland  picture 

tiles 
Of  olden  stories  of  enchanters'  wiles; 
And  knights,  stiff-seeming,  upon  stirrer  steeds 
Hasting  to  help  fair  ladies  at  their  needs; 
And  bible  tales,  of  prophets  and  of  kings; 
And  faery  ones,  of  midnight,  meadow  rings 
Whereon,  at  mild  star-rise,  the  wanton  elves 
Dance,  having  cleared  the  grass  blades  for 

themselves 
As  we  men  clear  a  forest;  and  besides 
Of  phantom  castles  and  of  woodland  rides, 
Of  convent  cloisters  and  religious  veils 

[32] 


And  all  such  like,   were    drawn  a  hundred 

tales ; 
And  therein  was  the  swinging  censer  showed, 
And  therein  altar  candles  feebly  glowed 
And  the  bent  priest  upraised  the  sacred  host. 
And  when  the  dusk  drew  on,  in  times  of  frost, 
And  new  fires  sparkled  on  the  clean  swept 

hearth 
And  with  pale  tongues  and  laughing  sound  of 

mirth 
Licked  the  dry  wood  and  carven  iron  dogs 
Whereon  was  piled  the  treasure  of  the  logs, 
In  the  red  glow  that  rose  and  waned  again 
The  pictured  figures  writhed  as  if  in  pain, 
Elijah  shook  his  mantle,  and  the  knight 
His  spear,  and  'mong  the  elves  of  foot-fall 

light 
One  saw  the  dance  grow  faster,  till  the  flame 
Once  more  drew  in,  and  all  things  were  the 

same. 

Nor  were  there   wanting  fleshlier  joys  than 

these ; 
For  as  the  night  grew  closer  and  the  trees 
Hissed  in  the  wind,  before  the  ruddy  fire 
Was  spread  the  napkin,  white  to  a  desire, 

[33] 


Laid  out  with  silver  vessels  and  brown  bread 
And  some  hot  pasty  smoking  at  the  head 
With  odorous  vapour,  and  the  jug  afloat 
With  bitter,  amber  ale  that  stings  the  throat 
Or  figured  glasses  full  of  purple  wine. 
Or  should  one  ask  for  pleasures  more  divine, 
Then  let  him  draw  toward  the  pleasant  blaze 
And  in  the  warm  still  chamber,  let  him  raise 
Blue   wreaths   of    pungent  vapor   from  the 

bowl, 
That  glows  and  dusks  like  an  ignited  coal 
At  every  inhalation  of  sweet  smoke. 
So  shall  he  clear  a  stage  for  that  quaint  folk, 
The  brood  of  dreams,  that  faery  puppet  race 
That  will  not  dance  but  on  a  vacant  space; 
And  purge  from  every  prejudice  or  creed 
His  easy  spirit,  that  with  greater  speed, 
He  may  outrun  the  boundaries  of  art 
And  grapple  with  grim  questionings  of  heart. 


[34] 


THE  WELL-HEAD— 1869 

The  "Prayer,"  which  was  the  opening  poem 
in  the  191 6  Bibliophile  edition  of  Stevenson 
manuscripts,  was  written  in  October,  1869; 
and  to  the  month  of  March  of  that  year  be- 
longs the  present  poem,  composed  also  in  a 
spirit  of  religious  reverence,  yet  with  an  in- 
teresting element  of  doubt  as  to  the  superior- 
ity of  a  future  life  over  man's  "dear  world  of 
hill  and  plain." 

The  "mottoes  for  the  beginning,"  jotted 
down  by  Stevenson  and  here  retained,1  show 
the  source  of  the  theme,  and  incidentally 
establish  the  identity  of  the  "Ayrshire  peas- 
ant" who  might  otherwise  have  been  mistaken 
for  Robert  Burns.  But  the  young  Stevenson 
is  unable  to  follow  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  or 

1  MOTTOES   FOR  THE   BEGINNING 

"To  thoughtful  observators  the  whole  world  is  a  philactery 
and  everything  we  see  an  item  of  the  wisdom,  power  or  good- 
ness of  God."     Sir  T.  Browne's  Christain  Morals,  Part  III. 

"And  (God)  gradually  manifested  Himself  to  me  more  and 
more  when  viewing  His  works,  till  at  last  I  saw  His  glorious 
being  and  perfections  shine  forth  brightly  in  a  refreshing  drink 
of  water  which  I  took" — "A  rare-Soul-strengthening  and  Com- 
forting Cordial,  by  John  Stevenson,  Land  Labourer  in  the 
Parish  of  Daily  in  Carrick,  who  died  in  the  year  1728" — 
Select  Biographies:    Woodrow  Society. 

[35] 


the  eighteenth  century  John  Stevenson,  in 
finding  in  Nature,  or  in  Nature's  creatures, 
God  the  Creator.  The  closing  stanzas  show 
his  passionate  desire  for  such  consummation, 
but  the  poem  as  a  whole  does  not  follow 
the  Hebraic  attitude,  adopted  by  Christianity, 
of  perceiving  God  in  his  works.  Stevenson 
distinctly  states  how  difficult  it  is  with  him; 
how 

The  creatures  will  not  let  me  see 
The  great  creator  of  them  all ; 

and  the  poem  reveals  the  quandary  of  one 
caught  up  in  religious  yearning,  who  is  yet  pre- 
eminently a  Pagan  in  his  devotion  to  Nature 
in  itself.  The  very  title  suggests  the  duality 
of  the  young  Stevenson's  mental  struggle,  the 
"well-head"  being  both  the  natural  source  of 
physical  waters,  and  the  divine  source  of  life's 
spiritual  stream. 

THE  WELL-HEAD 

The  withered  rushes  made  a  flame 

Across  the  marsh  of  rusty  red; 
The  dreary  plover  ever  came 

And  sang  above  the  old  well-head. 

[363 


About  it  crouch  the  junipers, 

Green-black  and  dewed  with  berries  white, 
And  in  the  grass  the  water  stirs, 

Aloud  all  day,  aloud  all  night. 

The  spring  has  scarcely  come,  'tis  said; 

Yet  sweet  and  pleasant  art  thou  still, 
'Mong  withered  rushes,  old  well-head, 

Upon  the  sallow-shouldered  hill. 

The  grass  from  which  these  waters  came, 
These  waters  swelling  from  the  sod, 

Had  been  a  bible  unto  some, 
A  grave  phylactery  of  God. 

The  Ayrshire  peasant,  years  ago, 
Drank  down  religion  in  a  cool 

Deep  draught  of  waters  such  as  flow 
From  out  this  pebbly  little  pool. 

But  different  far  is  it  with  me, 

Here,  where  the  piping  curlews  call; 

The  creatures  will  not  let  me  see 
The  great  creator  of  them  all. 

And  I  should  choose  to  go  to  sleep, 
With  Merlin  in  Broceliande, 

[37] 


To  hear  the  elm  boughs  hiss  and  sweep, 
In  summer  winds  on  either  hand. 

To  cling  to  forest-trees  and  grass 

And  this  dear  world  of  hill  and  plain, 

For  fear,  whatever  came  to  pass, 
God  would  not  give  as  good  again. 

And  some  may  use  the  gospel  so, 

That  is  a  pharos  unto  me, 
And  guide  themselves  to  hell,  although 

Their  chart  should  lead  them  unto  Thee. 

Lord,  shut  our  eyes  or  shut  our  mind, 
Or  give  us  love,  in  case  we  fall ; 

'Tis  better  to  go  maim  and  blind 
Than  not  to  reach  the  Lord  at  all. 


[38] 


A  SUMMER  NIGHT— 1869 

While  these  verses,  dated  October  25,  1869, 
have  a  formal  similarity  to  the  March  poem 
of  the  preceding  pages,  beginning  as  they  do 
with  a  description  of  Nature  and  ending  on 
the  religious  note,  they  differ  essentially,  in- 
asmuch as  here  Stevenson  finds  in  the  glow 
of  the  sky  the  symbol  of  the  promise  of  Heav- 
enly light. 

A  SUMMER  NIGHT 

About  us  lies  the  summer  night; 

The  darkling  earth  is  dusk  below; 
But  high  above,  the  sky  is  bright 

Between  the  eve  and  morning  glow. 

Clear  white  of  dawn,  and  apple  green, 
Sole    lingering  of  the  evening's    hue, 

Behind  the  clustered  trees  are  seen, 
Across  dark  meadows  drencht  in  dew. 

So  glow  above  the  dusk  of  sin, 
Remembrance  of  Redemption  vast, 

And  future  hope  of  joy  therein 
That  shall  be  shed  on  us  at  last. 

[39] 


Each  haloed  in  its  husk  of  light, 
Atoms  and  worlds  about  us  lie; 

Though  here  we  grope  awhile  in  night, 
'Tis  always  daylight  up  on  high. 


[40] 


TAKE  NOT  MY  HAND  AS  MINE 
ALONE—  1 871 

While  in  various  poems  of  this  year  Steven- 
son thinks  of  himself  as  one  who  shall  be  a 
leader  in  recruiting  humanity  for  endeavors 
towards  fairer  goals  than  the  past  has  for  the 
most  part  set,  he  here  writes  in  a  more  modest 
vein,  and  emphasizes  the  fact  that  his  hand  is 
but  one  in  a  chain  of  helpfulness,  and  that 
the  real  debt  is  to  those  great  bygone  leaders 
from  whom  he  has  caught  his  inspiration. 


TAKE  NOT  MY  HAND  AS  MINE 
ALONE 

Take  not  my  hand  as  mine  alone — 

You  do  not  trust  to  me — 
I  hold  the  hand  of  greater  men 

Too  far  before  to  see. 

Follow  not  me,  who  only  trace 
Stoop-head  the  prints  of  those 

Our  mighty  predecessors,  whom 
The  darknesses  enclose. 


[40 


I  cannot  lead  who  follow — I 
Who   learn,   am  dumb  to   teach; 

I  can  but  indicate  the  goals 
That  greater  men  shall  reach. 


[42] 


ALL  INFLUENCES  WERE  IN  VAIN 

1871 

In  this  poem  written  in  that  mixed  mood 
of  dejection  and  of  high  resolve  so  character- 
istic of  Stevenson  at  this  period,  the  meta- 
phors are  decidedly  interesting.  The  picture 
of  Stevenson  walking  with  his  shadow  and 
his  regret,  a  trio  on  the  sand;  the  "thought- 
wheels  galloping  through  the  night  into  the 
morning  tide;"  the  thoughts  that  he  seeks  to 
convoke  for  a  plebiscite;  the  band  of  wan- 
dering thoughts  falling  into  rank  for  the  ser- 
ious march  onward  —  are  all  notable  and  in 
keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  poem.  But  at 
the  very  end  his  sense  of  humor  leads  him  to 
a  witty  touch  not  quite  worthy  of  the  lines 
that  precede  it;  and  while  one  rejoices  that 
the  regret  which  accompanied  him  so  closely 
in  the  second  stanza  has  been  dissipated  by  the 
time  the  final  stanza  has  been  reached,  its 
plight  might  have  been  phrased  in  a  manner 
more  in  keeping  with  the  tenor  of  the  earlier 
lines. 


[43] 


ALL  INFLUENCES  WERE  IN  VAIN 

All  influences  were  in  vain, 

The  sun  dripped  gold  among  the  trees, 
The  fresh  breeze  blew,  the  woody  plain 

Ruffled  and  whispered  in  the  breeze. 

All  day  the  sea  was  on  one  hand, 

The  long  beach  shone  with  sun  and  wet — 
We  walked  in  trio  on  the  sand, 

My  shadow,  I  and  my  regret! 

Eve  came.     I  clambered  to  my  bed, 

Regret  lay  restless  by  my  side, 
The  thought-wheels  galloped  in  my  head 

All  night  into  the  morning  tide. 

The  thought-wheels  span  so  madly  quick, 
So  many  thousand  times  an  hour, 

Thought  after  thought  took  life,  as  thick 
As  bats  in  some  old  belfry  tower. 

My  mind  was  in  emeutef  each  thought 

Usurped  its  individual  right. 
In  vain,  I  temporised — I  sought 

In  vain  to  hold  a  plebiscite! 

[44] 


Thoughts  jostled  thoughts — By  hill  and  glade 
They  scattered  far  and  wide  like  sheep, 

I  stretched  my  arms — I  cried — I  prayed — 
They  heard  not —  I  began  to  weep.1 

My  head  grew  giddy-weak — I  tried 
To  drown  my  reason.     All  in  vain. 

I  lay  upon  my  face  and  cried 
Most  bitterly  to  God  again. 

God  put  a  thought  into  my  hand, 
God  gave  me  a  resolve,  an  aim. 

I  blew  it  trumpet-wise — the  band 
Of  scattered  fancies  heard  and  came. 

They  heard  the  bugle  tones  I  blew — 

The  wandering  thoughts  came  dropping  in ; 

They  took  their  ranks  in  silence  due — 
One  hour,  and  would  the  march  begin? 

The  march  began;  and  once  begun 
The  serious  purpose,  true  design 

Has  held  my  being  knit  in  one — 
My  being  kept  the  thoughts  in  line. 

1  Later  in  life,  Stevenson  in  looking  over  this  poem  drew  a 
pencil  mark  under  the  last  half  of  this  line,  and  wrote  "Bah!" 
after  it. 

[45] 


Since  then,  the  waves  are  still.    The  tide 
Sets  steadily  and  strongly  out. 

The  sea  shines  tranquil,  far  and  wide, 
My  mind  is  past  the  surf  of  doubt. 

The  pole-star  of  my  purpose  keeps 
The  constant  line  that  I  should  steer. 

At  night  my  weary  body  sleeps, 
My  brain  works  orderly  and  clear. 

All  things  are  altered  since  I  set 
The  steady  goal  before  my  face ; 

All  things  are  changed ;  and  my  regret 
Is  advertising  for  a  place! 

"Companion  for  an  invalide — 

The  Rene-sort  preferred  —  genteel 

And  orthodox."    I  wish  it  speed — 
The  creature  kept  so  well  to  heel! 


[46] 


WE  ARE  AS  MAIDENS  ONE  AND 
ALL—  1 871 

When  Stevenson,  in  later  years,  was  going 
over  his  youthful  manuscripts,  copying  many 
of  them,  unquestionably  with  the  intention  of 
having  them  sooner  or  later  find  their  way 
into  print,  he  annotated  the  present  manu- 
script with  the  significant  ejaculation,  "pooh- 
pooh!"  This  trenchant  criticism,  presum- 
ably due  to  the  effeminate  note  in  the  imagery 
of  the  verses,  strongly  inclined  us  at  first  to 
follow  the  author's  lead,  and  omit  the  poem 
from  the  present  volume.  But  on  further  con- 
sideration it  was  thought  best  to  let  the  verses 
take  their  place  with  the  other  compositions 
of  their  period;  for  while  some  readers  may 
marvel  at  lines  where  human  beings,  it  would 
seem,  are  compared  to  convent  maidens,  and 
Stevenson  himself  to  a  bashful  bride,  the 
poem  has  many  appealing  qualities,  both  in 
its  phraseology  and  in  its  thought. 

Especially  notable  is  the  picture  of  Death, 
who,  cantering  on  his  "great  gray  horse,"  sug- 
gests the  engravings  of  Diirer  and  other  old 
masters.    In  referring  to  Death  as  "that  splen- 

[47] 


did  acred  Lord,"  Stevenson  has  found  an  or- 
iginal description,  whether  we  interpret  the 
phrase  as  referring  to  cemeteries — or  "God's 
acres,"  as  they  used  to  be  called — or  whether 
we  think  of  Death  as  master  of  all  the  earth. 
The  concluding  stanza  in  which  Stevenson 
disavows  fear  of  the  kiss  of  Death  is  of  spe- 
cial interest,  since,  from  early  childhood  he 
was  always  consciously  within  its  shadow. 

DEATH 

We  are  as  maidens  one  and  all, 

In  some  shut  convent  place, 
Pleased  with  the  flowers,  the  service  bells, 

The  cloister's  shady  grace, 

That  whiles,  with  fearful,  fluttering  hearts, 

Look  outward  thro  the  grate 
And  down  the  long  white  road,  up  which, 

Some  morning,  soon  or  late, 

Shall  canter  ort  his  great  grey  horse 

That  splendid  acred  Lord 
Who  comes  to  lead  us  forth — his  wife, 

But  half  with  our  accord. 

[48] 


With  fearful  fluttered  hearts  we  wait — 

We  meet  him,  bathed  in  tears; 
We  are  so  loath  to  leave  behind 

Those  tranquil  convent  years; 

So  loath  to  meet  the  pang,  to  take 
(On  some  poor  chance  of  bliss) 

Life's  labour  on  the  windy  sea 
For  a  bower  as  still  as  this. 

Weeping  we  mount  the  crowded  aisle, 

And  weeping  after  us 
The  bridesmaids  follow — Come  to  me! 

I  will  not  meet  you  thus, 

Pale  rider  to  the  convent  gate. 

Come,  O  rough  bridegroom,  Death, 
Where,   bashful   bride,  I  wait   you,    veiled, 

Flush-faced,  with  shaken  breath ; 

I  do  not  fear  your  kiss.     I  dream 

New  days,  secure  from  strife, 
And,  bride-like,  in  the  future  hope — 

A  quiet  household  life. 


[49] 


THE  MOON  IS  SINKING— THE  TEM- 
PESTUOUS WEATHER— 1871 

This  fragment  proceeds  far  enough  to  show 
Stevenson  at  work  on  the  same  theme — the 
onward  march  despite  difficulties — that  first 
engrossed  him  in  1871  and  afforded  the  ma- 
terial for  numerous  verses  of  that  year.  The 
lines  have  little  in  themselves  to  recommend 
them,  and  Stevenson  after  having  laid  aside 
his  mediocre  beginning  comes  back  to  it  later 
just  long  enough  to  add  the  amusing  com- 
ments of  the  last  four  words  of  his  manu- 
script. This  touch  of  humor  would  seem  to 
warrant  the  inclusion  of  the  fragment,  being 
characteristic  of  the  detached  critical  attitude 
which  Stevenson  took  towards  his  own  work. 


[50] 


THE  MOON  IS  SINKING— THE  TEM- 
PESTUOUS WEATHER 

The    moon     is     sinking — the     tempestuous 
weather 
Grows  worse,  the  squalls  disputing  our  ad- 
vance ; 
And  as  the  feet  fall  well  and  true  together 
In  the  last  moonlight,  see!  the  standards 
glance  I 

One  hour,  one  moment,  and  that  light  forever. 
Quite  so. 
Jes'  so. 


[51] 


.THE  WHOLE  DAY  THRO',  IN  CON-. 
TEMPT  AND  PITY— 1871 

The  poem  entitled  "Prelude,"  previously 
printed  by  The  Bibliophile  Society,  was  ac- 
companied by  a  manuscript  note  of  Steven- 
son's to  the  effect  that  it  was  then  that  he  first 
began  to  take  interest  in  the  poor  and  sorrow- 
ful. In  that  poem  he  beats  his  drum  in  search 
of  recruits  to  make  life  happier.  The  present 
poem  shows  the  same  metaphor,  and  through- 
out is  similar  in  theme  and  purpose, — its  fine 
note  of  optimism  coming  to  a  climax  in  the 
closing  stanza  where  Stevenson,  full  of  his 
new  sympathy  with  humanity,  likes  to  think  of 
all  men  as  heroes  in  a  common  cause. 

1 
THE  WHOLE  DAY  THRO',  IN  CON- 
TEMPT AND  PITY 

The  whole  day  thro',  in  contempt  and  pity, 
I  pass  your  houses  and  beat  my  drum, 
In  the  roar  of  people  that  go  and  come, 
In  the  sunlit  streets  of  the  city. 

Hark!  do  you  hear  the  ictus  coming, 
Mid  the  roar  and  clatter  of  feet? 

[52] 


Hark!  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  street 
Do  you  hear  the  sound  of  my  drumming? 

Sun  and  the  fluttering  ribbons  blind  me; 
But  still  I  beat  as  I  travel  the  town, 
And  still  the  recruits  come  manfully  down, 
And  the  march  grows  long  behind  me. 

In  time  to  the  drum  the  feet  fall  steady, 
The  feet  fall  steady  and  firm  to  hear, 
And  we  cry,  as  we  march,  that  the  goal  is  near, 
For  all  men  are  heroes  already! 


[53] 


THE  OLD  WORLD  MOANS  AND 
TOPES— 1 871 

Intellectually  and  politically,  the  period 
when  this  poem  was  written  was  for  all 
Europe  a  time  of  restlessness.  The  war  of 
1870  had  upset  the  old  order  of  things  in  con- 
tinental affairs,  and  religious  belief  had,  for 
many,  not  as  yet  reconciled  itself  to  the  dis- 
turbing influence  of  the  new  thought  of  Dar- 
win and  Spencer.  In  the  present  poem  Stev- 
enson offers  as  a  prescription  to  cure  the  ills 
of  the  time  a  renewed  faith  in  the  nobility  of 
mankind  itself,  thus  coming  into  accord  with 
the  conviction  of  that  ruggedly  fine  old  Scots- 
man to  whom,  politically,  he  was  opposed,  but 
who  still  so  greatly  aroused  his  admiration. 
For  was  it  not  Stevenson's  compatriot,  Thom- 
as Carlyle,  who  said:  "There  is  one  godlike 
thing,  the  essence  of  all  that  ever  was  or  ever 
will  be  godlike  in  this  world :  the  veneration 
done  to  Human  Worth  by  the  hearts  of  men." 


[54] 


THE  OLD  WORLD  MOANS  AND 
TOPES 

The  old  world  moans  and  topes, 

Is  restless  and  ill  at  ease; 
And  the  old-world  politicians 

Prescribe  for  the  new  disease. 

I  have  stooped  my  head  to  listen 
(Its  voice  is  far  from  strong)1 

For  the  burthen  of  its  moanings 
As  it  topes  all  night  long. 

I  have  watched  a  patient  vigil 

Beside  its  fever  bed, 
And  I  think  that  I  can  tell  you 

The  burthen  of  what  it  said: — 

"As  sick  folk  long  for  morning 

And  long  for  night  again, 
So  long  for  noble  objects 

The  hearts  of  noble  men. 

"They  long  and  grope  about  them, 
With  feverish  hands  they  grope 

1  In  a  hand,  written  much  later,  Stevenson  penciled  three 
exclamation  marks  after  this  line,  then  added,  "Bully  for  you, 
L.  Stevenson!" 

[55] 


For  objects  of  endeavour, 
And  exercise  for  hope. 

"And  they  shall  be  our  heroes 

And  be  our  Avatar, 
Who  shall  either  reach  the  objects 

Or  tell  us  what  they  are." 


[56] 


I  AM  LIKE  ONE  THAT  HAS  SAT 
ALONE—  1 871 

The  influence  of  Heine  —  an  influence  we 
have  previously  had  occasion  to  comment  up- 
on— is  again  evident  in  these  verses  written 
at  Swanston,  where  the  poet  likens  the  re- 
arising  of  hopeful  life  after  a  period  of  de- 
jection to  a  glorious  sunset  after  a  day  of  storm 
and  gloom. 

I  AM  LIKE  ONE  THAT  HAS  SAT 
ALONE 

I  am  like  one  that  has  sat  alone 

All  day  on  a  level  plain, 
With  drooping  head  and  trailing  arms 

In  a  ceaseless  pour  of  rain — 

With  drooping  head  and  nerveless  arms 
On  the  moorland  flat  and  gray, 

Till  the  clouds  were  severed  suddenly 
About  the  end  of  day; 

And  the  purple  fringes  of  the  rain 

Rose  o'er  the  scarlet  west, 
And  the  birds  sang  in  the  soddened  furze, 

And  my  heart  sang  in  my  breast. 

[57] 


I  SIT  UP  HERE  AT  MIDNIGHT 

1871-1872 

Here  again,  were  it  not  for  the  word  "Inch- 
cape"'  in  the  third  stanza,  we  should  at  first 
glance  feel  almost  convinced  that  the  present 
verses  are  a  translation  from  Heine,  so  closely 
both  in  style  and  in  spirit  does  the  Scottish 
poet  follow  the  German  master.  "Inch," 
meaning  an  island,  is  so  unmistakably  an  in- 
dex of  Scottish  local  nomenclature  that  it 
saves  us  the  trouble  of  going  through  the 
works  of  Heine  to  find  the  supposed  original ; 
but  we  can  never  come  upon  a  more  convinc- 
ing evidence  of  the  intensity  of  Stevenson's 
study  of  the  great  German  lyrist.  The  metre 
is  the  one  that  Heine  most  used;  the  simplicity 
of  the  sentences  is  in  his  vein,  only  one  simile 
in  the  first  stanza  and  one  metaphor  in  the 
fifth  interrupting  the  sheer  directness  of  de- 
scription. And  if  this  were  truly  a  Stevenson 
poem,  and  not  a  Heine-Stevenson  poem,  the 
subject  would  be  treated  in  a  more  personal 
manner,  and  would  lack  the  dramatic  objec- 
tivity which  is  so  often  a  striking  element  in 
Heine's  poems  of  this  nature.    Then,  at  the 

[581 


end,  how  altogether  Heine  the  closing  line, 
"The  foolish  fisher  woman!"  Stevenson  never 
would  have  thought  of  calling  her  that,  unless 
he  were  unconsciously  writing  with  Heine's 
mind.  After  picturing  two  scenes — the  skip- 
per husband  in  the  storm,  and  the  terrified 
wife  at  home — after  arousing  our  sympathy 
for  a  loving  woman  in  anguish,  Heine  alone, 
of  all  poets  it  would  seem,  would  have  iron- 
ically inwoven  the  note  of  tenderness  in  the 
"foolish  fisherwoman,"  mocking  himself  and 
his  own  experiences,  in  thus  regarding,  with 
a  wry  smile  of  ridiculing  pity,  the  misery  of 
human  love. 


I  SIT  UP  HERE  AT  MIDNIGHT 

I  sit  up  here  at  midnight, 

The  wind  is  in  the  street, 
The  rain  besieges  the  windows 

Like  the  sound  of  many  feet. 

I  see  the  street  lamps  flicker, 
I  see  them  wink  and  fail; 

The  streets  are  wet  and  empty, 
It  blows  an  easterly  gale. 

[59] 


Some  think  of  the  fisher  skipper 
Beyond  the  Inchcape  stone; 

But  I  of  the  fisher  woman 
That  lies  at  home  alone. 

She  raises  herself  on  her  elbow 
And  watches  the  firelit  floor; 

Her  eyes  are  bright  with  terror, 
Her  heart  beats  fast  and  sore. 

Between  the  roar  of  the  flurries, 
When  the  tempest  holds  its  breath, 

She  holds  her  breathing  also — 
It  is  all  as  still  as  death. 

She  can  hear  the  cinders  dropping, 
The  cat  that  purrs  in  its  sleep — 

The  foolish  fisher  woman! 
Her  heart  is  on  the  deep. 


[60] 


LINK  YOUR  ARM  IN  MINE,  MY  LAD 

1872 

While  this  poem  is,  as  its  title  indicates,  a 
song  doubtless  sung  by  Stevenson  and  his  stu- 
dent companions  as  they  quaffed  their  glasses 
in  the  Edinburgh  winter  of  1 871 -1872,  it  is 
possible  that  the  "lad"  who  appears  in  the  first 
line  may  have  been,  not  any  companion  in  gen- 
eral, but  his  cousin,  the  artist  and  critic  of  art, 
Robert  Alan  Stevenson.  The  point  of  view 
here  shown  as  to  the  value  of  endeavor  and 
the  relative  unimportance  of  the  individual's 
place  in  the  social  scheme,  is  one  that  both  in 
verse  and  in  conversation  frequently  appears 
in  the  exchange  of  thoughts  between  the  two 
cousins.  However  this  may  be,  the  poem  con- 
sidered merely  as  a  student  song  presents  so 
unusual  a  juxtaposition  of  ideas  as  to  render  it 
unique.  If,  for  a  moment,  we  omit  consider- 
ation of  the  chorus,  and  study  the  first  four 
stanzas,  we  find  Stevenson  closely  following  the 
model  of  student  drinking  songs  such  as  may 
be  read  by  the  score  in  the  anthology  of  John 
Addington  Symonds.  The  linking  of  the 
arms  of  boon  companions,  the  animadversions 


[61] 


against  Fortune,  the  advice  deeply  to  drain 
the  cheering  glass,  the  carefree  wish  that 

Devil  take  Posterity 

And  present  people   too,  lad! 

are  all  in  the  vein  of  convivial  youth,  and 
might  be  a  translation  from  the  Latin  of  me- 
diaeval days.  With  such  a  beginning,  we 
might  assuredly  expect  a  ringing  chorus  with 
the  glowing  bowl  for  its  theme;  but  instead, 
we  have  in  the  chorus  itself  the  unadulterated 
note  of  human  fraternity,  and  the  only  specific 
suggestion  as  to  conduct  has  to  do,  not  with 
the  cheer  of  wine,  but  with  fraternal  cheer  in 
the  larger  sense.  And  similarly,  in  the  con- 
cluding stanzas,  immediately  following  the 
adjuration  to  the  devil  to  take  both  posterity 
and  the  present,  an  appeal  implying  the  fu- 
tility of  all  endeavor,  the  poet  devotes  himself 
to  the  thought  of  the  value  of  work.  There 
never  was  a  more  curious  revelation  in  a 
drinking  song,  of  cross  currents  where  tend- 
encies towards  the  easy  and  the  pleasant,  the 
serious  and  the  arduous,  are,  in  their  conjunc- 
tion, expressed  in  a  manner  so  revelatory  of 
the  inner  life  of  the  writer. 

[62] 


LINK  YOUR  ARM  IN  MINE,  MY  LAD 

Link  your  arm  in  mine,  my  lad  — 

You  and  I  together, 
You  and  I  and  all  the  rest 

Shall  face  the  winter  weather. 

Chorus 
Some  to  good,  and  some  to  harm, 
Some  to  cheer  the  others, 
All   the    world   goes   arm   in   arm, 
And  all  the  men  are  brothers. 

Fortune  kicks  us  here  and  there, 

Small  our  role  in  life,  lad. 
Better  paltry  peace,  howe'er, 

Than  hero-laurelled  strife,  lad. 

While  there's  liquor  to  be  had, 

Deeply  drain  the  bickers. 
Ocean  plays  at  marbles,  lad, 

With  men  of  war  for  knickers. 

Who  will  ever  hear  of  me? 

Who  will  hear  of  you,  lad? 
Devil  take  posterity 

And  present  people  too,  lad! 

[63] 


I  have  work  enough  to  do, 
Strength  enough  to  do  it — 

I  have  work  and  so  have  you, 
So  put  your  shoulder  to  it! 

Some  do  half  that  I  can  do, 
Some  can  do  the  double, 

Some  must  rule  for  me  and  you, 
To  save  ourselves  the  trouble! 

Who  would  envy  yonder  man 

Decorated  thus,  lad? 
We  are  workingmen  for  him, 

And  he's  an  earl  for  us,  lad! 


[64] 


I  HAVE  A  FRIEND;  I  HAVE  A  STORY 
(1872?) 

While  Stevenson's  remarkable  poem  begin- 
ning "God  Gave  to  Me  a  Child  In  Part"  first 
published  in  the  Bibliophile  edition,  was 
placed  in  the  section  entitled  "Poems  of  Un- 
certain Date,"  the  suggestion  was  made  that 
it  belonged  to  the  early  seventies.  It  was  dur- 
ing that  same  period  (presumably  1872, 
though  possibly  1871)  that  the  present  kin- 
dred poem  was  doubtless  written.  The  in- 
ternal evidence  is  too  strong  for  any  other  as- 
sumption, since  there  was  apparently  only  one 
woman  in  Stevenson's  life  who,  although  he 
was  devoted  to  her,  might  yet  have  had  reason 
to  hate  him.  We  know  her  merely  as 
"Claire,"  the  name  inscribed  marginally  by 
Stevenson  on  the  manuscript  of  "Swallows 
Travel  To  and  Fro," — verses  which  in  1873 
were  composed  with  her  in  mind.  She  was 
the  Edinburgh  girl  who  was  in  all  probabil- 
ity the  prospective  mother  of  that  unborn 
child  lamented  by  Stevenson  in  the  poem, 
"God  Gave  To  Me  a  Child  in  Part,"  refer- 
red to  above.    The  depth  of  his  affection  for 


[65] 


her  is  shown  in  many  of  his  early  lyrics;  but 
when  (we  must  believe  because  of  parental 
objection),  he  was  forced  to  break  with  this 
girl  whose  status  and  antecedents  may  have 
justified  his  family's  opposition,  and  when  in 
1872  he  was  sent  by  his  parents  to  the  conti- 
nent, her  love  may  well  have  changed  to  the 
hatred  prophesied  in  the  closing  lines  of  the 
following  verses. 

Analyzing  the  poem  from  the  point  of  view 
here  taken  we  are  confronted  in  the  first 
stanza  with  a  quarrel  between  the  lovers.  It 
is  barely  possible  that  a  misunderstanding, 
due  to  some  cause  no  longer  ascertainable, 
led  to  the  break  in  relations;  but  far  more 
probably  the  approaching  separation  was  the 
cause  of  a  scene  in  which  Stevenson  was  up- 
braided and  misjudged.  The  second  stanza 
leads  to  the  surmise  that  although  agreeing  to 
a  temporary  separation.  Stevenson  had 
promised  loyalty  to  the  girl  if  she  would  re- 
main true  to  him.  In  the  third  stanza,  with 
the  passionate  expression  of  his  love  for  her, 
appears  one  of  those  sentences  that  belong 
only  to  his  early  days -even  then  very  rarely, 
for  later  in  life  he  never  attributed  the  baf- 

[66] 


fling  cruelty  of  existence  to  God.  The  phrase 
he  used  is  that  of  a  desperate  mood;  and  how 
little  hope  he  had  of  regaining  the  affection 
of  his  beloved  is  set  forth  in  the  last  line  of  the 
closing  stanza  where  he  says,  "A  while,  and 
she  will  only  hate." 


[67] 


I  HAVE  A  FRIEND ;  I  HAVE  A  STORY 

I  have  a  friend;  I  have  a  story; 

I  have  a  life  that's  hard  to  live; 
I  love;  my  love  is  all  my  glory; 

I  have  been  hurt  and  I  forgive. 

I  have  a  friend;  none  could  be  better; 

I  stake  my  heart  upon  my  friend! 
I  love;  I  trust  her  to  the  letter; 

Will  she  deceive  me  in  the  end? 

She  is  my  love,  my  life,  my  jewel ; 

My  hope,  my  star,  my  dear  delight. 
God!  but  the  ways  of  God  are  cruel, — 

That  love   should   bow  the  knee  to  spite! 

She  loves,  she  hates, — a  foul  alliance! 

One  King  shall  rule  in  one  estate. 
I  only  love;  'tis  all  my  science; 

A  while,  and  she  will  only  hate. 


[68] 


HOPES— 1872 

In  its  subject  matter — its  insistence  on  the 
"hopeful  heart" — the  kinship  of  these  verses 
with  so  many  others  of  Stevenson's  is  obvious ; 
but  both  the  date  and  the  place  of  this  compo- 
sition have  a  rather  special  interest,  inasmuch 
as  1 87 1,  that  vital  year  when  turbulent 
thoughts  and  emotions  first  calmed  down  suffi- 
ciently to  permit  a  clear  outlook  upon  life,  has 
now  been  left  behind.  Scotland  is  replaced  by 
Germany,  and  at  Frankfort,  in  1872,  we  find 
Stevenson  writing  in  that  vein  of  determined 
hope  which  was  thenceforth  to  be  his  great- 
est source  of  strength.  It  is  perhaps  the  only 
poem  that  he  wrote  in  Germany,  and  one  won- 
ders whether  the  words  in  his  autograph  at 
the  bottom  of  the  manuscript  and  in  the  Ger- 
man script,  recording  that  "Today  for  the 
first  time  I  spoke  to  Elise,"  establish  so  pleas- 
ant a  meeting  with  some  attractive  young  girl 
as  to  suggest  an  additional  reason  for  the 
cheerful  tenor  of  the  poem. 

From  the  first  to  the  last  stanza  Stevenson 
adheres  to  a  line  of  imagery  effective  in  itself, 
and  characteristic  of  the  introspective  youth 

[69] 


whose  thoughts  and  hopes  are  so  much  a  part 
of  his  daily  life  as  to  take  on  the  aspect  of  per- 
sonified companions.  In  such  verses  as  "And 
new  hopes  whisper  sweetly  new  delight,"  and 
"A  troop  of  shouting  hopes  keep  step  with 
me,"  he  gives  voice  and  form  to  these  crea- 
tures of  the  mind,  in  a  manner  that  appealing- 
ly  intensifies  our  realization  of  the  intimate 
communion  between  the  poet  and  his  faithful 
troop  of  thoughts  and  aspirations. 

HOPES 

Tho'  day  by  day  old  hopes  depart, 

Yet  other  hopes  arise 
If  still  we  bear  a  hopeful  heart 

And  forward-looking  eyes. 

Of  all  that  entered  hand  in  hand 
With  me  the  dusty  plains — 
Look  round! — not  one  remains, 

Not  one  remains  of  all  the  jovial  band. 

Some  fell  behind,  some  hastened  on; 

Some,  scattered  far  and  wide, 

Sought  lands  on  every  side; 
One  way  or  other,  all  the  band  are  gone. 

[70] 


Yes,  all  are  gone;  and  yet,  at  night, 

New  objects  of  desire 

People  the  sunken  fire 
And  new  hopes  whisper  sweetly  new  delight; 

And  still,  flush-faced,  new  goals  I  see, 

New  finger-posts  I  find, 

And  still  thro'  rain  and  wind 
A  troop  of  shouting  hopes  keep  step  with  me. 

Tho'  day  by  day  old  hopes  depart, 

Yet  other  hopes  arise 
If  still  we  bear  a  hopeful  heart 

And  forward-looking  eyes. 


[71] 


TO  A  YOUTH— 1872 

The  "youth"  to  whom  this  poem  was 
written,  probably  in  1872,  was  almost  certain- 
ly Stevenson's  cousin  "Bob,"  who  was  later  to 
become  noted  in  fields  of  art  and  art  criticism. 
Robert  Louis  and  Robert  Alan  Stevenson 
had  much  in  common,  both  in  taste  and  tem- 
perament; and  of  his  elder  cousin,  Steven- 
son, in  a  letter  to  Sidney  Colvin,  written  in 
January  1874,  said:  "He  has  all  the  same  ele- 
ments of  character  that  I  have :  no  two  people 
were  ever  more  alike,  only  that  the  world  has 
gone  more  unfortunately  for  him,  although 
more  evenly."  The  two  cousins  exchanged 
verses,  counsels  and  encouragement;  and  the 
present  poem  shows  the  younger  and  more 
famous  of  the  pair  offering  his  friend  a  mes- 
sage of  cheer,  based  on  the  philosophy  of  the 
all-sufficing  value  of  courageous  endeavor. 

TO  A  YOUTH 

See,  with  strong  heart  O  youth,  the  change 
Of  mood  and  season  in  thy  breast. 
The  intrepid  soul  that  dares  the  wider  range 
Shall  find  securer  rest. 

[72] 


To   (X-  ua^AM^ 

^JZQ-.f  UfXAM.  /QAJUA^g  fat&^A      0   fa/UJvU  f    tjUJL  CV&a^QJZ^ 

CM/vujiTjj^  Ou^X?^-  A^ui^jw  t*^     {far   i^u^TK ' . 

»  v  ^         A 

M 


The  variable  moods  they  breed 
Are  but  as  April  sun  and  shower, 
That  only  seem  to  hinder — truly  speed 
Against  the  harvest  hour. 

Thy  net  in  all  rough  waters  cast, 

In  all  fair  pasturelands  rejoice, 

Thee  shall  such  wealth  of  trials  lead  at  last 

To  thy  true  home  of  choice. 

So  shalt  thou  grow,  O  youth,  at  length 
Strong  in  endeavor,  strong  to  bear 
As  having  all  things  borne,  thy  lease  of 

strength 
Not  perishable  hair. 

Not  the  frail  tenement  of  health, 

The  uneasy  mail  of  stoic  pride 

(A  Nessus-shirt  indeed!)  the  veer  of  wealth 

In  strong  continual  tide. 

Not  these,  but  in  the  constant  heart, 
That  having  all  ways  tried,  at  last 
Holds,  stout  and  patient,  to  the  eternal  chart, 
Well  tested  in  the  past. 

O,  more  than  garlands  for  our  heads, 
Than  drum  and  trumpet  sounding  loud, 

[73] 


As  the  long  line  of  fluttering  banners  threads 
The  many-coloured  crowd; 

That  sense  of  progress  won  with  ease, 
Of  unconstrained  advance  in  both, 
Of  the  full  circle  finished — such  as  trees 
Feel  in  their  own  free  growth. 


So  shall  thy  life  to  plains  below, 
O  not  unworthy  of  the  crown! 
Equal  and  pure,  by  lives  yet  purer,  flow 
Companionably  down. 


[74] 


HERE  HE  COMES,  BIG  WITH 
STATISTICS— 1874 

Stevenson  took  his  law  studies  seriously 
enough  to  get  his  degree  as  Advocate  after 
creditably  passing  his  examinations  for  the 
Bar  in  1875;  but  in  the  course  of  taking  notes 
at  law  lectures  he  would  now  and  then  in- 
dulge in  verse  as  a  pastime;  and  the  present 
lines  are  a  very  amusing  example  of  his  skill 
in  such  unacademic  performances.  We  do  not 
know  the  name  of  the  professor  who  is  here 
lampooned,  but  we  do  know  the  type,  and  can 
well  understand  Stevenson's  contemptuous 
pity  so  deftly  worded  in  the  last  two  lines. 

HERE  HE  COMES,  BIG  WITH 
STATISTICS 

Here  he  comes,  big  with  statistics, 
Troubled  and  sharp  about  fac's. 

He  has  heap  of  the  Form  that  is  thinkable — 
The  stuff  that  is  feeling,  he  lacks. 

Do  you  envy  this  whiskered  absurdity, 

With  pince-nez  and  clerical  tie? 
Poor  fellow,  he's  blind  of  a  sympathy! 

I'd  rather  be  blind  of  an  eye. 

[75] 


SIT  DOON  BY  ME,  MY  CANTY 
FREEND— 1874 

This  drinking  song  in  the  Scots  dialect  is 
associated  with  those  convivial  nights  when 
Stevenson,  with  some  of  his  fellow  students, 
frequented  the  taverns  of  Edinburgh  after 
days  generally  spent  in  serious  study.  It  is, 
of  course,  the  characteristic  student  drinking 
song  of  all  ages,  with  the  insistence  on  the 
value  of  tasting  the  delights  of  wine,  especial- 
ly in  view  of  the  shortness  of  life. 


SIT  DOON  BY  ME,  MY  CANTY 
FREEND 

Sit  doon  by  me,  my  canty  f  reend, 
Sit  doon,  an'  snuff  the  licht! 

A  boll  o'  bear  's  in  ilka  glass 
Ye'se  drink  wi'  me  the  nichtl 

Chorus 
Let  preachers  prate  o'  soberness 

An'  brand  us  ripe  for  doom, 
Yet  still  we'll  lo'e  the  brimmin'   glass, 

And  still  we'll  hate  the  toom. 


[76] 


There's  fire  an'  life  in  ilka  glass, 
There's  blythesomness  an'  cheer, 

There's  thirst  an'  what'll  slocken  it, 
There's  love  and  laughter  here. 

O  mirk  an'  black  the  lee  lang  gate 
That  we  maun  gang  the  nicht, 

But  aye  we'll  pass  the  brimmin'  glass 
An'  aye  we'll  snuff  the  licht. 

We'll  draw  the  closer  roond  the  fire 

And  aye  the  closer  get. 
Without,  the  ways  may  thaw  or  freeze, 

Within  we're  roarin'  wet! 


[77] 


IN  AUTUMN  WHEN  THE  WOODS 
ARE  RED— 1875 

The  romantic  attachment  which  runs 
through  so  much  of  his  verse  in  the  early 
seventies  was  not  much  more  than  a  senti- 
mental memory  for  Stevenson,  when,  in  1875, 
in  the  company  of  Walter  Simpson  he  was 
spending  some  weeks  in  France.  While  early 
joys  are  referred  to  as  gone,  "A  touch  of  April 
not  yet  dead,"  followed  by  the  picture  of 
Cupid  hunting,  shows  Stevenson's  thoughts 
turning  towards  past  days  in  Edinburgh.  Yet 
less  on  the  personal  side,  than  as  an  attempt 
at  French  forms  of  verse,  is  this  poem  de- 
serving of  special  comment.  Those  days  in 
France,  when  Stevenson  first  came  into  close 
contact  with  French  authors,  ancient  and 
modern,  left  their  valuable  impress  on  his 
style.  English  and  Scotch  literature  he  al- 
ready knew  well,  and  he  had  sat  at  the  feet  of 
the  German  masters,  Goethe  and  Heine;  but 
not  until  the  date  of  this  poem  was  his  interest 
marked  in  French  form,  and  to  this  continu- 
ing interest  and  expanding  study  is  doubtless 
due,  to  no  small  extent,  Stevenson's  stylistic 
development. 

[78] 


IN  AUTUMN  WHEN  THE  WOODS 
ARE  RED 

In  autumn  when  the  woods  are  red 

And  skies  are  gray  and  clear, 

The  sportsmen  seek  the  wild  fowls'  bed 

Or  follow  down  the  deer; 

And  Cupid  hunts  by  haugh  and  head, 

By  riverside  and  mere. 

I  walk,  not  seeing  where  I  tread 

And  keep  my  heart  with  fear. 

Sir,  have  an  eye,  on  where  you  tread 

And  keep  your  heart  with  fear, 

For  something  lingers  here; 

A  touch  of  April  not  yet  dead, 

In  Autumn  when  the  woods  are  red 

And  skies  are  gray  and  clear. 


[79] 


THE  LOOK  OF  DEATH  IS  BOTH 
SEVERE  AND  MILD— 1875 

In  commenting,  in  the  previously  published 
Bibliophile  edition  of  Stevenson's  poems,  on 
the  poem  beginning — 

Death,  to  the  dead  forevermore, 

A  King,  a  God,  the  last  and  best  of  friends, 

the  editor  fell  into  an  error  in  calling  it  the 
earliest  of  the  poems  devoted  exclusively  to 
the  theme  of  Death  "as  the  ultimate  and  ful- 
filling peace."  It  was  indeed  the  earliest  of 
such  published  poems,  but  the  present  verses, 
reflecting  the  same  point  of  view,  antedate 
the  others  by  at  least  a  brief  time,  evidence  of 
which  is  found  in  the  original  draft  of  the 
previously  published  poem,  where  Stevenson 
used  the  line,  "And  comfortably  welcomes 
weary  feet,"  one  of  the  best  verses  in  the  pres- 
ent rondeau. 

The  opening  stanza  of  this  poem  gives  Stev- 
enson's most  successful  presentation  of  his  con- 
ception of  Death.  In  the  adjective  "severe" 
is  the  intimation  of  the  joys  of  life,  forgotten 
when  death  appears ;  while  in  the  antithetical 
adjective  "mild,"  Death  is  shorn  of  its  terror. 

[80] 


THE  LOOK  OF  DEATH  IS  BOTH 
SEVERE  AND  MILD 

The  look  of  Death  is  both  severe  and  mild, 
And  all  the  words  of  Death   are  grave  and 

sweet ; 
He  holds  ajar  the  door  of  his  retreat; 
The  hermitage  of  life,  it  may  be  styled; 
He  pardons  sinners,  cleanses  the  defiled, 
And  comfortably  welcomes  weary  feet. 
The  look  of  Death  is  both  severe  and  mild, 
And  all  the  words  of  Death  are  grave  and 

sweet. 

And  you  that  have  been  loving  pleasure  wild, 
Long  known  the  sins  and  sorrows  of  the  street, 
Lift  up  your   eyes   and  see,  Death  waits  to 

greet, 
As  a  kind  parent  a  repentant  child. 

The  bugle  sounds  the  muster  roll, 
The  blacksmith  blows  the  roaring  coal ; 
The  look  of  Death  is  both  severe  and  mild, 
And  all  the  words  of  Death  are  grave  and 
sweet. 


[81] 


HER  NAME  IS  AS  A  WORD  OF  OLD 
ROMANCE— 1875 

This  rondeau  may  very  possibly  have  been 
written  by  Stevenson  with  Mrs.  Sitwell  in 
mind.  That  talented  woman,  who  later  be- 
came the  wife  of  Sidney  Colvin,  one  of  the 
nearest  and  most  loyal  of  all  of  Stevenson's 
friends,  was  long  the  recipient  of  Stevenson's 
confidences,  and  among  the  persons  whom  he 
most  admired. 


[82] 


>  ft     W*  H  ^    -Vj\W^ 


V^-yV 


IH^>^A^ 


trpATOf 


M^JQ  &  Ufa  *&$&* 

<     ■  -    V  '  ■ 


HER  NAME  IS  AS  A  WORD  OF  OLD 
ROMANCE 

Her  name  is  as  a  word  of  old  romance 
That  thrills  a  careless  reader  out  of  sleep. 
Love  and  old  art,  and  all  things  pure  and  deep 
Attend  on  her  to  honour  her  advance, — 
The   brave  old  wars  where   bearded   heroes 

prance, 
The  courtly  mien  that  private  virtues  keep, — 
Her  name  is  as  a  word  of  old  romance. 
Peer  has  she  none  in  England  or  in  France, 
So  well  she  knows  to  rouse  dull  souls  [from 

sleep] 
So  deftly  can  she  comfort  those  that  weep 
And  put  kind  thought  and  comfort  in  a  glance. 
Her  name  is  like  a  [word  of  old  romance.] 


[83] 


LIGHT  AS  MY  HEART  WAS  LONG 
AGO— 1875 

The  same  form  shown  in  the  verses  begin- 
ning, "In  Autumn  When  the  Woods  are 
Red,"  is  followed  here  in  a  poem  that  comes 
close  to  the  spirit  of  some  of  Francois  Villon's 
lyrics.  Stevenson's  story,  "A  Lodging  for  the 
Night,"  based  on  Villon's  life,  and  his  essay 
on  that  inspired  and  interesting  reprobate,  are 
among  his  most  sympathetic  works  in  the 
fields  of  the  short  story  and  of  criticism.  And 
it  is  curious  to  reflect  that  while  Thoreau,  the 
ascetic  New  Englander,  was  the  American  to 
whom  Stevenson  most  instinctively  reacted, 
the  licentious  Villon  was,  we  fancy,  his  favor- 
ite hero  in  French  literature. 

But  an  even  more  interesting  thought  that 
arises  from  the  present  verses  and  from  those 
that  belong  to  their  little  group  of  the  year 
1875,  is  that  just  as  Stevenson's  apprenticeship 
as  a  man  of  letters  in  Scotland  began  with  at- 
tempts at  verse  writing,  so  similarly  when,  on 
the  continent,  he  sought  to  improve  his  work- 
manship by  the  study  of  French  forms,  it  was 
to  poetry  that  he  first  turned,  and  in  poetry 
that  he  continued  his  training. 

[84] 


LIGHT  AS  MY  HEART  WAS  LONG 
AGO 

Light  as  my  heart  was  long  ago, 

Now  it  is  heavy  enough; 

Now  that  the  weather  is  rough, 

Now  that  the  loud  winds  come  and  go, 

Winter  is  here  with  hail  and  snow, 

Winter  is  sorry  and  gruff. 

Light  as  last  year's  snow, 

Where  is  my  love?  I  do  not  know; 

Life  is  a  pitiful  stuff, 

Out  with  it — out  with  the  snuff! 

This  is  the  sum  of  all  I  know, 

Light  as  my  heart  was  long  ago. 


[85] 


GATHER  YE  ROSES  WHILE  YE  MAY 

1875 
This  is  another  one  of  Stevenson's  poems 
written  in  France,  and  a  charming  bit  of  verse 
experimentation,  where  Stevenson  weaves  the 
famous  lines  of  Robert  Herrick  into  a  more 
concrete  form  of  old  French  poetry. 

GATHER  YE  ROSES  WHILE  YE  MAY 

Gather  ye  roses  while  ye  may, 

Old  time  is  still  a-flying; 
A  world  where  beauty  fleets  away 

Is  no  world  for  denying. 
Come  lads  and  lasses,  fall  to  play 

Lose  no  more  time  in  sighing. 

The  very  flowers  you  pluck  today, 

Tomorrow  will  be  dying; 

And  all  the  flowers  are  crying, 
And  all  the  leaves  have  tongues  to  say,  — 
Gather  ye  roses  while  ye  may. 


[86] 


SINCE  I  AM  SWORN  TO  LIVE  MY 

LIFE— 1875 

Of  all  the  poems  belonging  to  the  little 
group  of  experimentations  in  the  French  style 
these  verses,  written  at  Nemours,  are  the  most 
successful  in  their  succinct  combination  of  the 
French  spirit  and  of  Stevenson's  own  attitude 
towards  life,  especially  in  his  youth.  Not 
only  in  form,  but  likewise  in  the  phrase  drawn 
from  the  terminology  of  duelling,  or  in  such 
an  adverb  as  "gaily,"'  we  have  the  French 
animation,  while  such  lines  as  "I  bear  a  ban- 
ner in  the  strife,"  and  "prudence  brawling  in 
the  mart,"  are  intimately  akin  to  earlier  verses 
written  in  Scotland.  Then,  too,  if  there  is  one 
statement  that  can  always  incontrovertibly  be 
made  of  Stevenson,  it  is,  that  he  was  sworn  to 
lead  his  life,  for  all  his  weakness  in  health, 
and  his  minor  weaknesses  in  character,  and 
that  he  always  carried  through,  at  whatever 
cost,  his  main  purposes,  whether,  as  in  mak- 
ing— against  the  wishes  of  his  father — liter- 
ature his  profession,  or,  against  the  advice  of 
all  his  friends,  in  setting  forth  with  little 
strength  and  less  money  on  the  great  adven- 
ture of  his  marriage. 

[87] 


SINCE  I  AM  SWORN  TO  LIVE  MY 
LIFE 

Since  I  am  sworn  to  live  my  life, 
And  not  to  keep  an  easy  heart, 
Some  men  may  sit  and  drink  apart, — 
I  bear  a  banner  in  the  strife. 

Some  can  take  quiet  thought  to  wife, — 
I  am  all  day  at  tierce  and  carte; 
Since  I  am  sworn  to  live  my  life 
And  not  to  keep  an  easy  heart. 

I  follow  gaily  to  the  fife, 
Leave  wisdom  bowed  above  a  chart 
And  prudence  brawling  in  the  mart, 
And  dare  misfortune  to  the  knife, 
Since  I  am  sworn  to  live  my  life. 


[88] 


POEM  FOR  A  CLASS  RE-UNION-  1875 

Mr.  D'Arcy  Wentworth  Thompson,  himself 
an  author  and  a  man  described  as  charming  in 
his  personality,  was  the  Master  referred  to  in 
the  third  line  of  this  poem.  It  was  at  his  pri- 
vate school  in  Frederick  Street,  Edinburgh, 
that  Stevenson  during  the  years  1864-1867  had 
formed  the  friendships  that  led  him,  some 
years  later,  to  attend  the  class  re-union  for 
which  this  poem  was  written. 

POEM  FOR  A  CLASS  RE-UNION 

Whether  we  like  it,  or  don't, 

There's  a  sort  of  bond  in  the  fact 
That  we  all  by  one  master  were  taught, 

By  one  master  were  bullied  and  whackt. 
And  now  all  the  more  when  we  see 

Our  class  in  so  shrunken  a  state 
And  we,  who  were  seventy- two, 

Diminished  to  seven  or  eight. 

One  has  been  married,  and  one 

Has  taken  to  letters  for  bread; 
Several  are  over  the  seas; 

And  some  I  imagine  are  dead. 

[89] 


And  that  is  the  reason,  you  see, 

Why,  as  I  have  the  honour  to  state, 

We,  who  were  seventy-two, 
Are  now  only  seven  or  eight. 

One  took  to  heretical  views, 

And  one,  they  inform  me,  to  drink; 
Some  construct  fortunes  in  trade, 

Some  starve  in  professions,  I  think. 
But  one  way  or  other,  alas! 

Through  the  culpable  action  of  Fate 
We,  who  were  seventy-two 

Are  now  shrunken  to  seven  or  eight. 

So,  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 

Let  us  own  there's  a  bond  in  the  past, 
And,  since  we  were  playmates  at  school, 

Continue  good  friends  to  the  last. 
The  roll-book  is  closed  in  the  room, 

The  clackan  is  gone  with  the  slate, 
We,  who  were  seventy-two 

Are  now  only  seven  or  eight. 

We  shall  never,  our  books  on  our  back, 
Trudge  off  in  the  morning  again, 

To  the  slide  at  the  janitor's  door, 
By  the  ambush  of  rods  in  the  lane. 

[90] 


We  shall  never  be  sent  for  the  tawse, 
Nor  lose  places  for  coming  too  late; 

We  shall  never  be  seventy-two, 
Who  now  are  but  seven  or  eight! 

We  shall  never  have  pennies  for  lunch, 

We  shall  never  be  strapped  by  Maclean, 
We  shall  never  take  gentlemen  down, 

Nor  ever  be  schoolboys  again. 
But  still  for  the  sake  of  the  past, 

For  the  love  of  the  days  of  lang  syne 
The  remnant  of  seventy-two 

Shall  rally  together  to  dine. 


[91] 


I  SAW  RED  EVENING  THROUGH 

THE  RAIN— 1875 

This  Edinburgh  poem  of  the  year  1875  is 
another  of  an  unhappy  mood,  when  even  the 
memory  of  delight  has  in  it  a  bitter  touch. 
The  verses  are  an  original  draft,  showing  the 
writer  groping  after  the  finished  form,  and 
thus  the  second  and  fourth  stanzas  should  be 
regarded  as  varying  attempts  to  phrase  the 
same  emotion,  rather  than  as  separate  finished 
stanzas  of  a  completed  poem. 

In  the  final  verse  we  have  again,  in  the 
phrase,  "the  forward  way,"  an  indication  of 
Stevenson's  characteristic  insistence  upon  the 
value,  however  difficult  the  circumstances  of 
the  moment,  of  continuing  towards  the  goal. 

I  SAW  RED  EVENING  THROUGH 
THE  RAIN 

I  saw  red  evening  through  the  rain 
Lower  above  the  steaming  plain; 
I  heard  the  hour  strike  small  and  still, 
From  the  black  belfry  on  the  hill. 

Thought  is  driven  out  of  doors  tonight 
By  bitter  memory  of  delight; 

[92] 


The  sharp  constraint  of  finger  tips, 
Or  the  shuddering  touch  of  lips. 

I  heard  the  hour   strike  small  and  still, 
From  the  black  belfry  on  the  hill. 
Behind  me  I  could  still  look  down 
On  the  outspread  monstrous  town. 

The  sharp  constraint  of  finger  tips, 
Or  the  shuddering  touch  of  lips, 
And  all  old  memories  of  delight 
Crowd  upon  my  soul  tonight. 

Behind  me  I  could  still  look  down 
On  the  outspread  feverish  town; 
But  before  me,  still  and  grey, 
And  lonely  was  the  forward  way. 


[93] 


LAST  NIGHT  WE  HAD  A  THUNDER- 
STORM IN  STYLE— 1875 

This  draft  of  a  rondeau  written  in  France 
in  the  summer  of  1875,  seems  to  be  the  only 
one  of  Stevenson's  poems  where  he  patently 
attempts  to  incorporate  into  his  verses  the 
spirit  of  Voltaire.  The  conception  of  the 
thunder  as  the  voice  of  God  is  an  old  one,  and 
the  thunderbolts  of  Jove  echo  through  Greek 
and  Roman  literature ;  but  it  has  remained  for 
Stevenson,  in  ironic  mood,  lying  in  bed  "with 
a  Voltairean  smile,"  and  while  others  are 
praying — to  think  of  the  thunder  as  the  noise 
made  by  God  falling  down  a  flight  of  stairs. 
It  is  the  most  daring  bit  of  ridiculous  imagery 
in  all  his  writings,  and  however  greatly  some 
may  be  shocked  thereby,  its  success  can  hardly 
be  questioned  in  view  of  its  attainment  of  its 
object — the  smile  that  it  almost  inevitably 
arouses. 


[94] 


SjX* 


j    : 


V     \» 


U«^V  :■-■    '-  ►•  '  ' 


hi 


^S- 


LAST  NIGHT  WE  HAD  A  THUNDER- 
STORM IN  STYLE 

Last  night  we  had  a  thunderstorm  in  style. 
The  wild  lightning  streaked  the  airs, 
As  though  my  God  fell  down  a  pair  of  stairs. 
The   thunder    boomed  and   bounded  all  the 

while; 
All  cried  and  sat  by  waterside  and  stile, — 
To  mop  our  brow  had  been  our  chief  of  cares. 
I  lay  in  bed  with  a  Voltairean  smile, 
The  terror  of  good,  simple  guilty  pairs, 
And  made  this  rondeau  in  ironic  style. 
Last  night  we  had  a  thunderstorm  in  style. 

Our  God  the  Father  fell  down  stairs, 

The  stark  blue  lightning  went  its  flight  the 

while, 
The  very  rain  you  might  have  heard  a  mile, — 
The    strenuous    faithful    buckled    to    their 

prayers. 


[95] 


O  LADY  FAIR  AND  SWEET— 1875 

In  this  poem,  another  of  Stevenson's  ron- 
deau experiments,  does  he  again  address  the 
girl  who  is  the  subject  of  so  many  of  his  earlier 
lyrics?  If  so,  with  the  succeeding  poem,  "If  I 
had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove,"  it  forms  a 
pair  wherein  for  the  first  time  she  is  addressed 
as  "My  Lady,"  a  form  of  appellation  in  conso- 
nance with  the  formal  nature  of  the  old 
French  poetry  that  was  at  the  time  providing 
Stevenson  with  models.  The  two  poems,  as 
their  references  to  "winter  air"  and  "blinding 
sleet"  indicate,  were  presumably  written  in 
the  winter  months  of  1875,  after  Stevenson's 
return  from  France,  and  the  "noisy  street," 
and  "the  doleful  city  row,"  point  to  Edin- 
burgh. 

O  LADY  FAIR  AND  SWEET 

O  lady  fair  and  sweet 

Arise  and  let  us  go 

Where  comes  not  rain  or  snow, 

Excess  of  cold  or  heat, 

To  find  a  still  retreat 

By  willowy  valleys  low 

[96] 


Where  silent  rivers  flow. 
There  let  us  turn  our  feet 
O  lady  fair  and  sweet, — 
Far  from  the  noisy  street, 
The  doleful  city  row, 
Far  from  the  grimy  street, 
Where  in  the  evening  glow 
The  summer  swallows  meet, 
The  quiet  mowers  mow. 
Arise  and  let  us  go, 
O  lady  fair  and  sweet, 
For  here  the  loud  winds  blow, 
Here  drifts  the  blinding  sleet. 


[97] 


IF  I  HAD  WINGS,  MY  LADY,  LIKE  A 
DOVE— 1875 

This  is  one  of  the  most  successful  results  of 
Stevenson's  studies  in  French  verse,  and  none 
the  less  interesting  in  that  it  gives  indication 
of  the  author's  intimate  knowledge  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  English  poets.  Such  senten- 
ces as  "To  kiss  the  sweet  disparting  of  her  hair," 
and  "spend  upon  her  lips  my  all  of  breath" 
bring  up  memories  of  Herrick,  Marvell  and 
Waller;  and  the  whole  argument  of  what  he 
would  do,  if  he  were  a  dove,  is  an  argument 
proper  to  the  pages  of  that  quaint  and  delight- 
ful group  of  English  lyric  writers. 

IF  I  HAD  WINGS,  MY  LADY,  LIKE  A 
DOVE 

If  I  had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove 

I  should  not  linger  here, 
But  through  the  winter  air  toward  my  love, 

Fly  swift  toward  my  love,  my  fair, 
If  I  had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove. 

If  I  had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove, 
And  knew  the  secrets  of  the  air, 

[98] 


I  should  be  gone,  my  lady,  to  my  love, 

To  kiss  the  sweet  disparting  of  her  hair, 
If  I  had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove. 

If  I  had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove, 
This  hour  should  see  my  soul  at  rest, 

Should  see  me  safe,  my  lady,  with  my  love, 
To  kiss  the  sweet  division  of  her  breast, 

If  I  had  wings,  my  lady,  like  a  dove. 

For  all  is  sweet,  my  lady,  in  my  love; 

Sweet  hair,  sweet  breast  and  sweeter  eyes 
That  draw  my  soul,  my  lady,  like  a  dove 

Drawn  southward  by  the  shining  of  the 
skies ; 
For  all  is  sweet,  my  lady,  in  my  love. 

If  I  could  die,  my  lady,  with  my  love, 
Die,  mouth  to  mouth,  a  splendid  death, 

I  should  take  wing,  my  lady,  like  a  dove, 
To  spend  upon  her  lips  my  all  of  breath, 

If  I  could  die,  my  lady,  with  my  love. 


[99] 


EH,  MAN  HENLEY,  YOU'RE  A  DON! 

i875 

Discussion  has  been  frequent  upon  Henley's 
attitude  towards  the  Stevenson  of  later  life, 
and  the  over-idealization  of  the  Stevenson  of 
posthumous  fame.  In  the  earlier  days  of 
their  acquaintance,  when  both  were  strug- 
gling young  poets,  a  very  sympathetic  friend- 
ship existed  between  them  and  their  minds 
caught  fire  from  the  sparks  of  each  other's 
conversations.  Even  their  faults  of  tempera- 
ment and  character  brought  them  closer  to- 
gether. It  was  only  after  the  public  began  to 
set  Stevenson  on  too  high  a  pedestal  of  virtue 
that  Henley's  reaction  found  voice  in  expostu- 
lation and  regret. 

Here,  in  verses  written  several  years  before 
this  friendship,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
literature,  reached  its  consummation  in  vari- 
ous plays  of  collaboration,  we  have  a  witty 
and  familiar  little  poem,  full  of  all  the  tang 
of  the  vernacular,  and  of  Stevenson's  admira- 
tion for  Henley;  full,  too,  of  encouragement. 
But  in  the  retrospect,  there  is  a  touch  of 
pathos  in  Stevenson's  prophecy,  never  to  be 
fulfilled,  of  the  time  when  the  whole  world 
[  100] 


would  cheer  on  his  friend  Henley.  Henley 
was  a  born  poet,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
that  he  was  able — to  use  Stevenson's  term — 
to  spit  out  admirable  lines,  lines  whose  wis- 
dom entitled  him  to  the  appellation  of  "Don." 
But  life  was  cruel  to  Henley;  the  world  never 
"patted"  his  shoulders,  as  towards  the  end  it 
patted  the  shoulders  of  Stevenson,  and  these 
verses,  thus  faulty  in  prophecy,  have  their 
value  mainly  as  a  bright  jeu  d' esprit  dating 
from  the  younger  days  of  the  two  men. 

EH,  MAN  HENLEY,  YOU'RE  A  DON! 

Eh,  man  Henley,  you're  a  Don  I 
Man,  but  you're  a  deevil  at  it! 
This  ye  made  an  hour  agone — 
Tht! — like  that — as  tho  ye'd  spat  it, — 
Eh,  man  Henley. 

Better  days  will  come  anon 

When  you'll  have  your  shoulders  pattit, 

And  the  whole  round  world,  odd  rat  it! 

Will  cry  out  to  cheer  you  on; 

Eh,  man  Henley,  you're  a  Don! 


['WW] 


ALL  NIGHT  THROUGH,  RAVES  OR 
BROODS— 1876 

We  have  already  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  winter  of  1876  was  a  period  of  such 
melancholy  brooding  for  Stevenson,  that  he 
lacked  the  energy  even  for  correspondence, 
two  or  three  cheerless  letters  being  the  sum 
total  of  his  efforts  of  that  kind;  while  two 
poems  of  that  winter,  to  be  found  in  the  Bib- 
liophile edition  of  1916,  are  among  the  most 
despondent  that  came  from  his  pen. 

The  present  poem  belongs  to  the  same 
month,  March,  as  the  pair  just  mentioned,  and 
it  was  presumably  written  on  the  same  day  as 
the  short  poem  entitled  "Soon  Our  Friends 
Perish."  The  evidence  for  this  is  furnished 
by  Stevenson's  marginal  comment  on  the  pre- 
viously published  manuscript  where,  after 
asking  why  God  has  deserted  him,  he  adds: 
"And  why  does  the  damned  wind  rave  in  my 
ears?"    In  the  present  poem  the  lines  occur — 

All  night  through,  raves  or  broods 
The  fitful  wind  among  the  woods  — 

the  same  wind,  presumably,  as  raved  on  that 
same  night.    But,  as  we  so  often  find  in  Stev- 

[  102] 


enson,  even  in  his  darkest  moments,  he  here 
goes  beyond  the  pessimism  of  the  other  poem, 
and  lets  his  fancy  stray  into  more  hopeful 
fields  of  memory. 

The  verses  are  a  first  and  never-to-be  per- 
fected draft,  and  their  incompletion  affords 
an  added  testimony  of  the  unstrung  condition 
of  the  poet's  mind. 

ALL  NIGHT  THROUGH,  RAVES  OR 
BROODS 

All  night  through,  raves  or  broods 
The  fitful  wind  among  the  woods ; 
All  night  through,  hark!  the  rain 
Beats  upon  the  window  pane. 

And  still  my  heart  is  far  away, 

Still  dwells  in  many  a  bygone  day, 

And  still  follows  hope  with  [rainbow  wing] 

Adown  the  golden  ways  of  spring. 

In  many  a  wood  my  fancy  strays, 
In  many  unforgotten  Mays, 
And  still  I  feel  the  wandering — 
[Manuscript  breaks  off  here.~\ 

[103] 


THE  RAIN  IS  OVER  AND  DONE 
(.876?) 

The  handwriting  and  context  of  these 
verses  point  to  the  winter  of  1876,  and  the 
poem  is  emphatically  in  consonance  with  the 
moods  of  those  months  when  Stevenson's  out- 
look on  life  was  darkest.  The  poem  indicates 
that  his  despondency  was  partly  due  to  the 
recognition  of  the  lessening  of  his  love  for  the 
Edinburgh  girl  who  had  aroused  the  great 
passion  of  his  early  manhood. 

THE  RAIN  IS  OVER  AND  DONE 

The  rain  is  over  and  done; 
I  am  aweary,  dear,  of  love; 
I  look  below  and  look  above, 
On  russet  maiden,  rustling  dame, 
And  love's  so  slow  and  time  so  long, 
And  hearts  and  eyes  so  blindly  wrong, 
I  am  half  weary  of  my  love, 

And  pray  that  life  were  done. 


[104] 


THERE  WHERE  THE  LAND  OF 
LOVE— 1876 

As  the  winter  of  1876  gave  way  to  spring, 
Stevenson's  spirits  greatly  improved.  His 
letters  to  friends  were  far  more  numerous  in 
the  second  half  of  that  year  than  in  the  first 
half,  and  the  charm  of  Nature  reasserted  its 
power  over  his  spirits.  In  the  present  frag- 
mentary poem,  we  find  the  first  lyric  indica- 
tion of  the  re-appearance  of  Nature's  appeal, 
though  even  here,  in  the  comment  in  his  auto- 
graph where  the  briefness  of  life  is  imaged 
forth  as  a  flash  between  the  past  and  the  fu- 
ture, the  poet  is  seen  as  still  under  the  sway 
of  the  sombre  thoughts  that  have  darkened  his 
winter. 

THERE  WHERE  THE  LAND  OF 
LOVE 

There  where  the  land  of  love, 
Grown  about  by  fragrant  bushes, 
Sunken  in  a  winding  valley, 
Where  the  clear  winds  blow 
And  the  shadows  come  and  go, 
And  the  cattle  stand  and  low 

[IOJ] 


And  the  sheep  bells  and  the  linnets 
Sing  and  tinkle  musically. 
Between  the  past  and  the  future, 
Those  two  black  infinities 

Between  which  our  brief  life 
Flashes  a  moment  and  goes  out. 


[106] 


LOVE  IS  THE  VERY  HEART  OF 
SPRING— 1876 

In  foregoing  pages  it  has  been  shown  how, 
in  1875,  while  in  France,  Stevenson  had  be- 
come interested  in  forms  of  poetry  where  the 
element  of  the  refrain  comes  musically  into 
play.  The  present  verses  are  his  most  sustained 
attempt  at  this  kind  of  poetry,  and  some  may 
feel  that  the  manner  wherein  he  introduces  a 
few  lines  in  constant  repetition  is  so  tuneful 
that  the  poem  becomes  a  really  successful 
paean  of  love  and  springtime. 


LOVE  IS  THE  VERY  HEART  OF 
SPRING 

Love  is  the  very  heart  of  spring; 

Flocks  fall  to  loving  on  the  lea 
And  wildfowl  love  upon  the  wing, 

When  spring  first  enters  like  a  sea. 

When  spring  first  enters  like  a  sea 

Into  the  heart  of  everything, 
Bestir  yourselves  religiously, 

Incense  before  love's  altar  bring. 

[  107  ] 


Incense  before  love's  altar  bring, 

Flowers  from  the  flowering  hawthorn  tree, 
Flowers  from  the  margin  of  the  spring, 

For  all  the  flowers  are  sweet  to  see. 

Love  is  the  very  heart  of  spring; 

When  spring  first  enters  like  a  sea 
Incense  before  love's  altar  bring, 

And  flowers  while  flowers  are  sweet  to  see. 

Bring  flowers  while  flowers  are  sweet  to  see; 

Love  is  almighty,  love's  a  King, 
Incense  before  love's  altar  bring, 

Incense  before  love's  altar  bring. 

Love's  gifts  are  generous  and  free 
When  spring  first  enters  like  a  sea; 

When  spring  first  enters  like  a  sea, 
The  birds  are  all  inspired  to  sing. 

Love  is  the  very  heart  of  spring, 
The  birds  are  all  inspired  to  sing, 

Love's  gifts  are  generous  and  free; 
Love  is  almighty,  love's  a  King. 


[108] 


AT  MORNING  ON  THE  GARDEN 

SEAT— 1880 

In  his  volume  entitled  "Literary  Friends 
and  Acquaintances,"  William  Dean  Howells 
quotes  the  saying  of  Lowell's  "which  he  was 
fond  of  repeating  at  the  menace  of  any  form 
of  the  transcendental,  'Remember  the  dinner 
bell.'"  There  is  always  something  comfort- 
ing in  the  recognition  on  the  part  of  philos- 
opher or  poet  of  man's  interest  in  so  universal 
and  appealing  a  theme  as  that  of  food  and 
drink.  In  the  present  delightful  little  poem, 
probably  written  at  Silverado,  Stevenson  not 
only  declares  that  he  dearly  loves  to  drink  and 
eat,  and  relates  how  the  morning  star,  the  dew 
and  perfumes,  the  sweet  air  of  dawn  all  put 
him  in  the  humor  for  food,  but  quaintly  em- 
phasizes his  avowal  by  signing  his  name  in 
full,  as  if  to  a  credo. 


[109] 


AT  MORNING  ON  THE  GARDEN 
SEAT 

At  morning  on  the  garden  seat 

I  dearly  love  to  drink  and  eat; 

To  drink  and  eat,  to  drink  and  sing, 

At  morning,  in  the  time  of  spring. 

In  winter  honest  men  retire 

And  sup  their  possets  by  the  fire; 

But  when  the  spring  comes  round  again,  you 
see, 

The  garden  breakfast  pleases  me. 

The  morning  star  that  melts  on  high, 

The  fires  that  cleanse  the  changing  sky, 

The  dew  and  perfumes  all  declare 

It  is  the  hour  to  banish  care. 

The  air  that  smells  so  new  and  sweet, 

All  put  me  in  the  cue  to  eat. 
A  pot  at  five,  a  crust  at  four, 
At  half  past  six  a  pottle  more. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 


[no] 


ill 


Vv».   w — kj^    /Uv~^/OA~»~~«~-.  Kt/^-'-i. 


1/? 

Ik         fcX  JU^-o^tto.  &1***-  r^j  -*^i  i 

^Ut    pw»ys    (t-j(   ww^-jJU-w^  'V^^o  .C~X*  ft-4"-**^-  | 

iJ  A.  ,  ft.  (X— <<JC  ftX  Wv-A- 


\f\ 


IF  I  COULD  ARISE  AND  TRAVEL 

AWAY— (1880?) 

In  the  previous  two  volumes  of  Stevenson 
poems  issued  by  The  Bibliophile  Society,  there 
was  occasion  to  remark  on  the  coincidence  in 
metre  (and  a  very  unusual  metre)  in  Steven- 
son's poem  beginning  "I  Who  All  the  Winter 
Through"  and  in  Kipling's  "Mandalay." 
The  superlative  advantage  of  Kipling's  fam- 
ous verses  lies,  of  course,  in  the  fact  that  Man- 
dalay is  a  place  where  "there  ain't  no  ten 
commandments,  and  a  man  can  raise  a  thirst." 
Curiously  enough,  in  the  present  poem,  again 
antedating  Kipling's,  Stevenson  longs  for  a 
land  where  all  men  can  drink  with  "perfect 
zest,"  and  where  "we're  done  with  the  ten 
commandments."  No  charge  of  plagiarism, 
however  remote,  is  imputed  to  Kipling;  but 
the  coincidence  is  certainly  interesting.  As  to 
the  date  of  the  poem,  here  tentatively  suggest- 
ed as  1880,  one  cannot  be  sure;  but  the  hand- 
writing and  context  seem  to  point  to  the  Cali- 
fornian  days. 


[mi 


IF  I  COULD  ARISE  AND  TRAVEL 
AWAY 

If  I  could  arise  and  travel  away 

Over  the  plains  of  the  night  and  the  day, 

I  should  arrive  at  a  land  at  last 

Where  all  of  our  sins  and  sorrows  are  past 

And  we're  done  with  the  Ten  Commandments. 

The  name  of  the  land  I  must  not  tell; 
Green  is  the  grass  and  cool  the  well: 
Virtue  is  easy  to  find  and  to  keep, 
And  the  sinner  may  lie  at  his  pleasure  and 

sleep 
By  the  side  of  the  Ten  Commandments. 

Income  and  honor,  and  glory  and  gold 
Grow  on  the  bushes  all  over  the  wold; 
And  if  ever  a  man  has  a  touch  of  remorse, 
He  eats  of  the  flower  of  the  golden  gorse, 
And  to  hell  with  the  Ten  Commandments. 

He  goes  to  church  in  his  Sunday's  best; 

He  eats  and  drinks  with  perfect  zest; 

And  whether  he  lives  in  heaven  or  hell 

Is  more  than  you  or  I  can  tell ; 

But  he's  DONE  with  the  Ten  Commandments. 

[112] 


Vv 


n 


V*-.  U^  M/«,  &A~^a  aJA^A***  ; 


VAA/ 


GOOD  OLD  ALE,  MILD  OR 

PALE  — (1880?) 

Again  a  point  of  interrogation  must  follow 
the  date  offered  as  the  probable  period  of 
composition.  At  any  rate,  Stevenson  was 
away  from  England  or  Scotland;  and  it  is  a- 
musing  to  find  his  mind  reverting  not — as  so 
often  in  other  poems  written  in  America  or 
the  South  Seas — to  home  folks  and  sentiment- 
al aspects  of  early  life,  but  to  the  ales  and 
beers  of  his  native  land.  The  extent  of  his 
thirst  is  indicated  in  one  of  the  most  whimsical 
of  all  his  lines,  "give  me  a  vat  to  swim  a 
whale,"  which  may  echo  the  thoughts  of  not 
a  few  latter-day  American  readers. 

GOOD  OLD  ALE,  MILD  OR  PALE 

Good  old  ale,  mild  or  pale, 

India  ale  and  Burton, 
Give  me  a  vat  to  swim  a  whale. 
When  far  along  the  verdant  dale 

The  far  off  spire  appears, 
The  mind  reverts  to  Burton's  ale 

And  dreams  of  different  beers. 


[113] 


NAY,  BUT  I  FANCY  SOMEHOW, 
YEAR  BY  YEAR— 1880 

The  theme  of  this  poem  establishes  its  ap- 
proximate date,  and  though  it  may  possibly 
have  been  written  in  the  summer  of  1880, 
more  probably  it  belongs  to  the  little  cluster 
of  poems  for  Fanny  Osbourne  that  were  off- 
ered to  her  by  Stevenson  prior  to  their  mar- 
riage in  May. 

The  continuation  and  growth  of  their  love 
was  for  Stevenson  a  fixed  conviction  that 
he  incorporated  into  many  of  the  poems  writ- 
ten for  his  wife.  Here  it  takes  form  in  lines 
that  are  preceded  by  phrases  referring  directly 
to  the  hardships  of  Stevenson's  present  and 
his  immediate  past.  The  "my  land"  is  Cal- 
ifornia, and  the  sea,  that  Pacific  which  was  to 
encompass  the  closing  years  of  Stevenson's 
life.  The  poem  ends  with  two  lines,  notable 
in  their  connotation.  In  "Till  all  the  plain  be 
quickened  with  the  moon,"  there  is  the  sug- 
gestion of  romantic  love,  and  in  the  final  line 
we  have  in  "the  lit  windows,"  the  thought  of 
domestic  life,  of  the  happiness  of  home. 

The  sonnet  form  here  adopted  is  one  that 
Stevenson  had  used,  though  not  very  often,  in 

[»4] 


CJ 


(I 
'*..<•     *wv-tN>-  VriAy^u^^k  ^Cc^ct^  xX^ -ylf^A  x, 

I'  J  j  .  v  f**l  (AT  ^^    CWpjl^U 

*Mjl_  *~        ^COW-flUl  Wv^^aAo  -Wju-J*-^  ^  '-, 

u    5      r>^- 


■ 


the  days  of  his  apprenticeship  in  verse  some 
ten  years  earlier.  During  the  Samoan  period 
he  now  and  then  resorted  to  an  irregular  son- 
net form;  but  this  is  as  far  as  we  know,  the 
only  exact  sonnet  of  the  intermediate  period. 
Perhaps  his  acquaintance  with  French  poetry 
led  him  to  admit  the  two  lines  ending  with 
the  same  sound  —  feet,  defeat  —  a  practice  es- 
chewed by  the  best  English  sonneteers. 

NAY,  BUT  I  FANCY  SOMEHOW, 
YEAR  BY  YEAR 

Nay,  but  I  fancy  somehow,  year  by  year 
The  hard  road  waxing  easier  to  my  feet; 
Nay,  but  I  fancy  as  the  seasons  fleet 
I  shall  grow  ever  dearer  to  my  dear. 
Hope  is  so  strong  that  it  has  conquered  fear; 
Love  follows,  crowned  and  glad  for  fear's 

defeat. 
Down  the  long  future  I  behold  us,  sweet, 
Pass,  and  grow  ever  dearer  and  more  near; 
Pass  and  go  onward  into  that  mild  land 
Where  the  blond  harvests  slumber  all  the 

noon, 
And  the  pale  sky  bends  downward  to  the 
sea; 


Pass,  and  go  forward,  ever  hand  in  hand, 
Till  all  the  plain  be  quickened  with  the 

moon, 
And  the  lit  windows  beckon  o'er  the  lea. 


[116] 


MY  WIFE  AND  I,  IN  ONE  ROMAN- 
TIC COT— 1880 

The  early  months  of  Stevenson's  married 
life  were  spent  at  Silverado,  a  deserted  Cali- 
fornia mining  camp ;  and  it  was  there  that  he 
wrote  this  draft  of  a  poem  never  brought  to 
perfection.  Its  main  interest  lies  in  its  reve- 
lation of  the  things  that  Stevenson  and  his  wife 
were  hoping  someday  to  have — she,  a  horse 
and  a  garden,  and  he,  a  yacht  and  a  cellar  well 
stocked  with  wine.  These  wishes  bring  to 
mind  Stevenson's  sailing,  among  the  islands 
of  the  South  Sea,  and  Mrs.  Stevenson's  many 
hours  of  happy  and  arduous  hoeing  in  the 
garden  at  Vailima.  But  the  final  wish,  to 
have  their  friends  share  in  the  pleasures  of 
their  household,  was  not  to  be  fulfilled  in  that 
far  off  island  which  was  their  only  real  home. 

The  well,  knell,  hell,  dell,  etc.,  in  the  mar- 
gin of  the  manuscript,  as  shown  in  the  accom- 
panying f  acsmile,  remind  us  of  similar  gather- 
ings of  ammunition  by  Stevenson  for  other 
poems. 


[»7] 


MY  WIFE  AND  I,  IN  ONE  ROMAN- 
TIC COT 

My  wife  and  I,  in  one  romantic  cot, 
The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot, 
Or  high  as  the  gods  upon  Olympus  dwell, 
Pleased  with  what  things  we  have,  and 

pleased  as  well 
To  wait  in  hope  for  those  which  we  have  not. 

She  vows  in  ardour  for  a  horse  to  trot; 
I  stake  my  votive  prayers  upon  a  yacht. 
Which  shall  be  first  remembered,  who  can 

tell  — 
My  wife  or  I? 

Harvests  of  flowers  o'er  all  our  garden  plot, 
She  dreams;  and  I  to  enrich  a  darker  spot, — 
My  unprovided  cellar.    Both  to  swell 
Our  narrow  cottage  huge  as  a  hotel, 
Where  portly  friends  may  come  and  share  the 

lot 
Of  wife  and  I. 


[118] 


\ 


J  &X  mX^A\ 


-.jc^pg&^  >;u  -sig^^g^fe^ 


..'4— '—— '-•^■■■*  "« 


YES,  I  REMEMBER,  AND,  STILL  RE- 
MEMBER WAILING— 1881 

The  comment  at  the  bottom  of  the  manu- 
script page  — 

Brown  in  his  haste  demanded  this  from  me; 
I  in  my  leisure  made  the  present  verse 

would  seem  to  establish  the  place,  as  well  as 
the  year  of  the  composition  of  these  verses, 
wherein  the  poet  uses,  for  metrical  experi- 
mentation, the  memories  of  his  first  voyage 
to  America.  The  discussions  of  John  Adding- 
ton  Symonds,  Horatio  F.  Brown  and  Steven- 
son— men  interested  in  certain  classical  forms 
of  verse — led  Stevenson  to  various  successful 
efforts  in  English  Alcaics,  a  group  of  such 
poems  being  included  in  the  two-volume 
Bibliophile  edition  of  Stevenson's  poems. 
With  this  group  belong  the  present  verses, 
written  at  Davos  in  1881;  and  they  are  of 
special  interest  because  the  attempt  in  rhyme- 
less  verses  in  the  first  eleven  lines  is  followed 
by  a  rhymed  rendering  of  the  same  theme  in 
the  last  eight  lines. 

We  know  of  no  other  poem  of  Stevenson's, 
based  on  that  adventurous  sea  trip  when,  after 
having   left   home   without   announcing   his 

[»9] 


plans  or  bidding  his  friends  farewell,  the 
young  author,  ill  and  almost  penniless,  trav- 
elled on  an  emigrant  ship  toward  a  strange 
land  where  the  woman  he  loved  was  awaiting 
him.  It  was  in  1879  that  Stevenson  embark- 
ed; and  the  closing  months  of  that  year  and 
the  early  months  of  1880,  constitute  the  period 
when  his  fortune  was  at  its  nadir,  with  sick- 
ness, and  moments  almost  of  starvation  and 
despair,  very  nearly  pulling  him  under.  But 
even  so,  numerous  poems  of  those  days  give 
evidence  of  that  will  and  courage  which  he 
never  quite  lost,  and  in  the  present  verses  we 
find  the  poor  emigrant  raising  his  voice  in 
songs  of  home.  By  the  time  —  two  years  later 
—  when  he  recorded  in  these  experimental 
verses  the  memories  of  that  difficult  ocean 
voyage,  home  associations  had  been  renewed, 
and  he  was  again  in  Europe,  with  a  wife  who 
had  at  once  won  her  way  into  the  affections  of 
his  parents. 

YES,  I  REMEMBER,  AND  STILL  RE- 
MEMBER WAILING 

Yes,  I  remember,  and  still  remember  wailing 
Wind  in  the  clouds  and  rainy  sea-horizon, 

[  120] 


1  S\     I^V, 


rJ 


J  i  A,    r.vv  cL  <~  « 


v      V 


■ 


V. 

J    - 


■  °'   '  '  c 

i  -f- 


o 


I      f  J  4 


<   . 


V    1 


.y 


Empty  and  lit  with  a  low  nocturnal  glimmer; 
How  in  the  strong,  deep-plunging,  transat- 
lantic 
Emigrant  ship  we  sang  our  songs  in  chorus. 
Piping,  the  gull  flew  by,  the  roaring  billows 
Jammed  and  resounded  round  the  mighty 

vessel ; 
Infinite  uproar,  endless  contradiction; 
Yet  over  all  our  chorus  rose,  reminding 
Wanderers  here  at  sea  of  unforgotten 
Homes  and  the  undying,  old,  memorial  loves. 

R.  L.  Stevenson,  esq. 
Here  in  the  strong,    deep-plunging  transat- 
lantic 
Emigrant  ship  the  waves  arose  gigantic; 
Piping  the  gull  flew  by,  the  roaring  billows 
Rose  and  appeared  before  the  eye  like  pillows. 
Piping  the  gull  flew  by,  the  roaring  waves 
Rose  and  appeared  from  subter-ocean  caves, 
And  as  across  the  smoothing  sea  we  roam, 
Still  and  anon  we  sang  our  songs  of  home. 


Brown  in  his  haste  demanded  this  from  me; 
I  in  my  leisure  made  the  present  verse. 


[12!] 


OF  SCHOONERS,  ISLANDS  AND 
MAROONS— 1 88 1 

Although  Treasure  Island  was  not  publish- 
ed in  book  form  until  1883,  Stevenson  had 
well-nigh  completed  it  during  his  residence  at 
Braemar  in  1881,  and  his  letter  of  the  25th  of 
August  of  that  year,  addressed  to  Henley  and 
signed,  "R.  L.  S.,  Author  of  Boy  Stories," 
shows  what  fun  he  was  having  in  the  writing 
of  this  tale.  "The  Sea  Cook,  or  Treasure  Is- 
land, A  Story  for  Boys,"  was  the  title  Steven- 
son had  in  mind  for  the  book  that  was  the  first 
to  bring  him  fame;  and  he  wrote  to  Henley: 
"If  this  don't  fetch  the  kids,  why,  then,  they 
have  gone  rotten  since  my  day."  It  is  that 
thought  which  underlies  the  present  poem, 
written  assuredly  as  a  sort  of  rhymed  pre- 
face for  his  "ripping"  novel  of  adventure 
among  the  Buccaneers.  If  boys  have  grown 
too  wise  to  care  for  treasure  islands  and  dere- 
lict ships,  for  villainous  mariners  singing  "Yo 
ho  ho!  and  a  bottle  of  rum,"  why  then  let  the 
tale  remain  unread,  beside  the  writings  of 
Kingston  and  Ballantyne  and  "Cooper  of  the 
land  and  wave."  (This,  by  the  way,  is  the 
only  reference  in  Stevenson's  verses  to  Coop- 

[  122] 


er.)  But  the  budding  romancer  probably  had 
no  misgivings,  and  the  young  lad,  Lloyd  Os- 
bourne,  owing  to  whom  the  book  was  written, 
and  who  gave  orders  that  no  women  were  to 
appear  in  the  story,  was  there  to  indicate  by 
his  enthusiasm  the  reception  that  Treasure 
Island  was  to  receive  from  the  youth  of  the 
world.  Like  so  many  others  of  his  prefaces, 
whether  in  verse  or  in  prose,  this  one  was  not 
used  when  the  book  was  published;  and  its 
present  first  appearance  in  type  is  an  especial- 
ly interesting  contribution  to  Stevenson  liter- 
ature. 

It  is  worth  adding,  perhaps,  that  when 
Stevenson,  writing  from  the  "Schooner  Equa- 
tor, at  sea,  IQO  miles  off  Samoa,  Monday, 
December  2nd,  i88q,"  gave  his  friend  Colvin 
—  later  Sir  Sidney  —  the  plan  of  his  proposed 
book,  The  South  Seas,  he  began  with  the  head- 
ing "Part  I.  General.  Of  Schooners,  islands, 
and  maroons" — that  is,  with  the  first  line  of 
this  poem. 


[  123] 


OF  SCHOONERS,  ISLANDS  AND 
MAROONS 

Of  Schooners,  Islands  and  Maroons, 

And  Buccaneers  and  Buried  Gold, 
And  Torches  red  and  rising  moons, 

If  all  the  old  romance  retold 
Exactly  in  the  ancient  way, 

Can  please,  as  me  they  pleased  of  old, 
The  wiser  youngsters  of  today — 
So  be  it,  and  fall  on!  If  not, — 

If  all  the  boys  on  better  things 
Have  set  their  spirits  and  forgot — 
So  be  it,  and  fall  on!  If  not — 

If  all  the  boys  on  solid  food 
Have  set  their  fancies,  and  forgot 

Kingston  and  Ballantyne  the  brave 
And  Cooper  of  the  land  and  wave, 

So  be  it  also ;  and  may  I 
And  my  late-born  piratic  brood 

Unread  beside  the  ancients  lie! 
So  be  it  and  fall  on!  If  not,  — ' 

If  studied  youth  no  longer  crave,  — 
Their  ancients'  appetites  forgot, — 

Kingston  and  Ballantyne  the  brave, 

1  The    following    eight    lines    were    evidently    intended    by 
Stevenson  as  alternatives  for  the  eight  preceding  lines. 

[124] 


For  Cooper  of  the  sea  and  wood — 

So  be  it  also;  and  may  I 
And  all  my  pirates  share  the  grave 

Where  these  and  their  creations  lie. 


[125] 


HERE  LIES  EROTION— 1884 

In  connection  with  Stevenson's  translations 
from  Martial — included  in  the  earlier  Bibli- 
ophile edition, — translations  that  embodied 
two  of  the  Roman  poet's  tributes  to  the  little 
slave  child  and  dearly  loved  playmate  who 
died  at  the  age  of  six, -it  was  natural  to 
dwell  on  the  fact  that  Martial's  most  winning 
poems  were  those  concerning  Erotion.  The 
present  verses  show  Stevenson  attempting  an 
imitation  in  couplets,  rather  than  a  verbal 
translation  of  Martial  (Book  V,  No.  35),  and 
with  the  previously  printed  poems,  one  begin- 
ning, "Here  lies  Erotion  whom  at  six  years  old 
Fate  pilfered,"  and  the  other,  "This  girl  was 
sweeter  than  the  song  of  swans,"  they  consti- 
tute a  modern  poet's  group  of  adaptations  of 
an  unusual  theme  of  ancient  literature. 

The  original  poem,  "De  Erotio,"  has  only 
ten  lines.  Stevenson  follows  them  fairly 
closely,  the  changes  of  the  actual  names  of 
Erotion's  parents  (Fronte  and  Flaccila),  to 
"mother  and  sire,"  and  the  introduction  of 
the  line  "Where  the  great  ancients  sit  with 
reverend  face,"  being  the  only  departures 
from  the  original  worthy  of  note. 

[126] 


At  the  bottom  of  his  Ms.  appear  two  alter- 
nate lines  as  follows :- 

That  swam  light-footed  as  the  thistle-burr 
On  thee  O  mother  earth,  be  light  on  her. 

HERE  LIES  EROTION 

Mother  and  sire,  to  you  do  I  commend 
Tiny  Erotion,  who  must  now  descend, 
A  child,  among  the  shadows,  and  appear 
Before  hell's  bandog  and  hell's  gondolier. 
Of  six  hoar  winters  she  had  felt  the  cold, 
But  lacked  six  days  of  being  six  years  old. 
Now  she  must  come,  all  playful,  to  that  place 
Where  the  great  ancients  sit  with  reverend 

face; 
Now  lisping,  as  she  used,  of  whence  she  came, 
Perchance   she   names   and    stumbles   at  my 

name. 
O'er  these  so  fragile  bones,  let  there  be  laid 
A  plaything  for  a  turf;  and  for  that  maid 
That  ran  so  lightly  footed  in  her  mirth 
Upon  thy  breast — lie  lightly,  mother  earth! 


[  127] 


TO  PRIAPUS  — (1884?) 

In  Martial's  works  (VI- 16)  this  poem  ap- 
pears under  the  title  "Ad  Priapum."  Priapus, 
as  the  deity  symbolizing  the  fruitfulness  of 
nature,  was  the  recipient  of  the  first  fruits  and 
the  first  flowers,  and  his  image  with  the  sig- 
nificance of  regeneration  often  appeared  on 
the  tombs  of  the  ancient  world.  To  him,  there- 
fore, Martial  addresses  himself  in  this  invoca- 
tion on  behalf  of  the  dead. 

The  entire  tenor  of  the  verses,  the  desire 
that  none  but  children  shall  enter  the  "green 
enclosure,"  would  seem  to  indicate  that  this 
too  was  a  poem  for  the  beloved  "Erotion;" 
and  although  Stevenson  has  lengthened  the 
four  lines  of  the  Latin  into  six  lines  of  Eng- 
lish, and  has  taken  the  liberty  in  the  fifth  line 
of  naming  a  definite  age,  he  nevertheless  pre- 
serves the  spirit  and  the  sentiment  of  the  or- 
iginal. 


[.28] 


TO  PRIAPUS 

Lo,  in  thy  green  enclosure  here, 
Let  not  the  ugly  or  the  old  appear, 
Divine  Priapus;  but  with  leaping  tread 
The  schoolboy,  and  the  golden  head 
Of  the  slim  filly  twelve  years  old — 
Let  these  to  enter  and  to  steal  be  bold! 


[  129] 


AYE,  MON,  IT'S  TRUE- 1885 

In  a  letter  written  from  Bonallie  Towers, 
Bournemouth,  in  February,  1885,  to  John  Ad- 
dington  Symonds,  Stevenson  tells  of  "two 
thundering  influenzas"  that  he  had  caught  in 
the  previous  August  and  November.  He  had 
recovered  with  difficulty  from  the  latter  at- 
tack. His  ill  health  had  "painfully  upset" 
Mrs.  Stevenson,  and  he  himself  confesses  to 
feeling  "a  little  old  and  fagged."  Yet,  as  al- 
ways, his  courage  and  his  philosophical  hu- 
mor stood  him  in  good  stead;  and  even  as  he 
lay  very  ill  on  his  sick  bed  he  could  write 
such  a  bright  little  poem  as  the  following  lines 
in  the  Scots  dialect. 


[130] 


AYE,  MON,  IT'S  TRUE 

Aye  mon,  it's  true;  I'm  no  that  weel. 
Close  prisoner  to  my  lord  the  de'il, 
As  weak  's  a  bit  o'  aipple  peel, 

Or  ingan  parin', 
Packed  like  a  codfish  in  a  creel, 

I  lie  disparin'. 

Mon,  it's  a  cur-ous  thing  to  think 
How  bodies  sleep  and  eat  and  drink; 
I'm  no  that  weel,  but  micht  be  waur 
An'  doubt  na  mony  bodies  are. 


["31] 


FAR  OVER  SEAS  AN  ISLAND  IS 
(1889?) 

The  date  of  the  manuscript  is  uncertain,  but 
the  contents  would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  was 
written  prior  to  Stevenson's  setting  forth  upon 
his  voyage  to  the  islands  of  the  Pacific.  "Tos- 
sing palms"  belong  to  the  Southern  Seas,1  and 
Stevenson  was  indeed  "done  with  all,"  when 
he  took  up  his  abode  in  the  far  off  island  of 
Samoa.  His  recognition  of  the  modes  of  rest- 
lessness which  would  assail  him  in  a  place  so 
distant  from  all  the  friends  and  scenes  of  his 
past  life,  here  leads  him  to  call  upon  those  re- 
sources of  the  spirit  and  of  the  imagination 
that  are  the  mainstay  of  man  in  whatever 
abode.     And  so,  after  asking  himself,  — 

Have  I  no  castle  then  in  Spain, 
No  island  of  the  mind? 

he  charges  his  soul  to  seek  those  enchanted 
islands  and  streams  of  desire  that  are  not 
charted  on  any  map. 

1  In  Stevenson's  description  of  the  South  Sea  Island  of  Tutuila 
he  says:  "Groves  of  cocoanut  run  high  on  the  hills;"  and  on 
entering  the  bay  of  Oa,  he  exclaims,  "At  the  first  sight,  my  mind 
was  made  up;  the  bay  of  Oa  was  the  place  for  me!" 

[132] 


FAR  OVER  SEAS  AN  ISLAND  IS 

Far  over  seas  an  island  is 

Whereon  when  day  is  done 
A  grove  of  tossing  palms 

Are  printed  on  the  sun. 
And  all  about  the  reefy  shore 

Blue  breakers  flash  and  fall. 
There  shall  I  go,  methinks, 

When  I  am  done  with  all. 

Have  I  no  castle  then  in  Spain, 

No  island  of  the  mind, 
Where  I  can  turn  and  go  again 

When  life  shall  prove  unkind? 
Up,  sluggard  soul!  and  far  from  here 

Our  mountain  forest  seek; 
Or  nigh  enchanted  island,  steer 

Down  the  desired  creek.1 

1  To  these  lines,  which  Stevenson  wrote  in  one  of  his  note 
books,  he  added  the  following  verses  which,  although  in  a  dif- 
ferent meter,  seem  to  be  a  continuation  of  the  same  thought. 

There,  where  I  never  was, 

There  no  moral  laws, 
Pleasures  as  thick  as    haws 

Bloom  on  the  bush! 
Incomes  and  honours  grow 

Thick  on  the  hills. 
O  naught  the  iron  horse  avails, 

And  naught  the  enormous  ship. 

[133] 


ON  THE  GORGEOUS  HILLS  OF 
MORNING 

(Samoan  period,  i  890- 1 894) 

This  page  of  verse,  unfinished  though  the 
poem  is,  has  a  very  personal  charm  both  in 
the  actual  picture  that  it  presents  (Stevenson, 
abed,  in  the  forest  storm,  listening  to  the  early 
symphony  of  the  birds),  and  in  showing  the 
thoughts  that  stirred  him  despite  "the  merry 
piping."  Though  repining  was  not  his  way, 
his  letters  often  indicate  his  longing  for  that 
Scotland  which  he  was  never  to  see  again ;  and 
here,  after  the  note  of  tropic  beauty  has  been 
struck  in  the  initial  portion  of  his  poem,  he 
evokes  the  picture  of  the  far-away  Highlands 
with  their  "old  plain  men,"  and  their  "young 
fair  lasses."  And  as  cut  off  from  all  the  ac- 
tivities and  interests  of  his  former  life  he  re- 
flects on  the  remoteness  of  the  secluded  island 
from  which  he  can  no  longer  fare,  the  great 
forests  seem  to  him  mere  "empty  places," 
mocked  at  not  only  by  life  but  even  by  death. 


[134] 


ON  THE  GORGEOUS  HILLS  OF 
MORNING 

On  the  gorgeous  hills  of  morning 

A  sudden  piping  of  birds, 

A  piping  of  all  the  forest,  high  and  merry  and 

clear, 
I  lay  in  my  tent  and  listened; 
I  lay  and  heard  them  long, 
In  the  dark  of  the  moonlit  morning, 
The  birds  of  the  night  at  song. 
I  lay  and  listened  and  heard  them 
Sing  ere  the  day  was  begun ; 
Sing  and  sink  into 
Silence  one  by  one. 
I  lay  in  my  bed  and  looked  — 
Paler  than  starlight  or  lightning 
A  glimmer     .     .     . 

In  the  highlands  in  the  country  places 
Where  the  old  plain  men  have  rosy  faces, 
And  the  young  fair  lasses 
Quiet  eyes, 
Light  and  heat  begin,  begin  and  strengthen, 
And    the    shadows    turn    and    shrink    and 

lengthen, 
As  the  great  sun  passes  in  the  skies. 

[135] 


Life  and  death  go  by  with  heedful  faces  — 
Mock  with  silent  steps  these  empty  places. 


[136] 


RIVERS  AND  WINDS  AMONG  THE 
TWISTED  HILLS— 1 890- 1 894 

Obviously  a  fragment  of  a  poem  written  in 
the  Samoan  days,  these  verses  show  how  en- 
tirely Stevenson  has  left  behind  him  the  active 
and  intense  emotional  life  of  the  past,  and 
now,  among  the  rivers  and  winds  and  twisted 
hills  of  his  South  Sea  island,  keeps  the  tran- 
quil brow  of  reposeful  thought,  though  well 
knowing  that  Death  is  not  far  off. 

RIVERS  AND  WINDS  AMONG  THE 
TWISTED  HILLS 

Rivers  and  winds  among  the  twisted  hills, 
Hears,  and  his  hearing  slowly  fills, 
And  hearkens,  and  his  face  is  lit, 
Life  facing,  Death  pursuing  it. 

As  with  heaped  bees  at  hiving  time 
The  boughs  are  clotted,  as  (ere  prime) 
Heaven  swarms  with  stars,  or  the  city  street 
Pullulates  with  passing  feet; 
So  swarmed  my  senses  once,  that  now 
Repose  behind  my  tranquil  brow, 
Unsealed,  asleep,  quiescent,  clear; 
Now  only  the  vast  shapes  I  hear  — 

[  137] 


Hear  —  and  my  hearing  slowly  fills  — 
Rivers  and  winds  among  the  twisting  hills, 
And  hearken  —  and  my  face  is  lit  — 
Life  facing,  Death  pursuing  it. 


[138] 


I  AM  A  HUNCHBACK,  YELLOW 
FACED 

(uncertain  date) 

This  little  poem  may  possibly  belong  to  that 
juvenile  period  when  Stevenson  was  some- 
what under  the  influence  of  Heine.  But 
while  the  German  poet  might  easily  have  de- 
picted hunchback  and  harlot  as  being  of  one 
class  with  the  fellow  mortal  whom  they  ac- 
cost, the  "friendly  hand"  that  Stevenson  holds 
out  as  the  poem  closes  is  extended  without  that 
ironical  gesture  which  Heine  would  have 
been  inclined  to  make. 

I  AM  A  HUNCHBACK,  YELLOW 
FACED 

I  am  a  hunchback,  yellow  faced, — 

A  hateful  sight  to  see, — 
'T  is  all  that  other  men  can  do 

To  pass  and  let  me  be. 

I  am  a  woman, —  my  hair  is  white  — 

I  was  a  drunkard's  lass; 
The  gin  dances  in  my  head, — 

I  stumble  as  I  pass. 

[i39] 


I  am  a  man  that  God  made  at  first, 

And  teachers  tried  to  harm; 
Here  hunchback,  take  my  friendly  hand,- 

Good  woman  take  my  arm. 


[140] 


I  LOOK  ACROSS  THE  OCEAN 

(date  uncertain) 
The  following  verses  show  a  poem  not  al- 
together complete,  although  it  seems  that  an- 
other two  lines  might  have  rounded  it  out. 
In  any  case,  it  is  unique  among  the  manu- 
scripts of  Stevenson,  in  that  it  is  addressed  to 
America.  It  is  written  in  a  spirit  of  great 
faith  in  the  future  of  our  country  and  exhibits 
an  almost  mystic  tensity  in  the  hope  it  cher- 
ishes for  what  America  shall  achieve. 

I  LOOK  ACROSS  THE  OCEAN 

I  look  across  the  ocean, 

And  kneel  upon  the  shore, 
I  look  out  seaward  —  westward, 

My  heart  swells  more  and  more. 

I  see  the  great  new  nation, 

New  spirit  and  new  scope 
Rise  there  from  the  sea's  round  shoulder, — 

A  splendid  sun  of  hope! 

I  see  it  and  I  tremble  — 

My  voice  is  full  of  tears  — 
America  tread  softly, 

You  bear  the  fruit  of  years. 

[ho 


Tread  softly  —  you  are  pregnant 
And  growing  near  your  time  — 

[Manuscript  breaks  off  here'] 


[142] 


A3 


OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARv 


